Chuck Vs The Security Service
by kroblues
Summary: The third story in the AU which began with Chuck Vs The Reassignment and continued in Chuck Vs The Captain. After finally escaping the clutches of the US Government, how does Chuck and Sarah's new life in jolly ol' England start off?
1. Chuck Vs The Reveal

**A/N: I finally got around to this, then. I'll try to get as many chapters out as possible, but be warned, I'm leaving in six days to travel round Europe for a week and a half. Thanks to Wepdiggy for the beta and for the discussion on the overall plan for this story. Thanks also to alexg over at Strahotski for another discussion on the plan. Much appreciated, guys.**

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"Chuck..."began Sarah, "I have something to tell you..."

"Huh?" said Chuck, who was beginning to nod off a little.

"I said I have something to tell you, Chuck," said Sarah a little more determinedly.

"Oh, okay. Shoot," responded Chuck.

"Well..." began Sarah a little nervously. She took a deep breath to calm herself before continuing, "we're gonna have a baby," she spat out quickly before her nerves could stop her.

"We're gonna have a WHAT?" said Chuck rather loudly, and Sarah took this as a negative reaction.

"I thought you'd be happy," said Sarah sadly.

"What? No, I am happy. That was just a bit of a shock," said Chuck, as the realisation seemed to sink in and a huge smile spread across his face, "We're gonna be parents?" he said almost in awe.

"Yes, Chuck," responded Sarah in the affirmative, sporting almost as wide a smile as Chuck.

"Wow..."said Chuck breathlessly, before standing up and shouting to the whole plane, "I'm gonna be a dad!"

"Chuck," hissed Sarah, "we're meant to be _inconspicuous,_ not announcing our presence to the whole damn plane! Now, would you sit down and be my pillow again before I drag you down?"

_Wow, _thought Chuck,_ cute and threatening at the same time. Only Sarah could pull that combo off._

There were various people coming up to Chuck and shaking his hand, while hugging Sarah in congratulations for the entire rest of the flight. In between congratulations Sarah rested her head on Chuck's shoulder and relaxed totally for the first time in years.

She had nearly everything she'd always wanted; she'd found the missing part of her, she was going to be in a proper family for the first time since her very early childhood and there was virtually no danger to Chuck on the horizon save for the mundane stuff like bathroom falls. Her final mission was at last complete and she could get that real life she'd always wanted.

Sarah had a feeling that it wouldn't be very easy to adjust from a deep cover lifestyle to not having to worry about anything to do with national security and the like, and she wondered whether she'd miss it or not. If the opportunity presented itself (_and Chuck was supportive, of course_, thought Sarah) then she'd jump at the chance to work for the government in some way.

It wouldn't be easy to let go totally at once, so any sort of compromise where they could get a relatively normal life while still being able to do the spy stuff would be perfect for Sarah. Espionage was too deeply ingrained in her for Sarah to ever totally let it go, at least not without some serious help or a better reason. Chuck was probably the only person she would ever listen to, so if he wanted her to give it up she would, and he was the only person she could trust totally; not even Bryce had ever once successfully changed her mind once it was set on something.

Chuck was struggling to keep calm in his excitement over finding out about his upcoming parenthood; he was sure there would be many joys of it in store over the coming years. He was hard pressed to find a time where he had ever felt such a sense of happiness. Sure, when Sarah had come back was pretty close, but that was more of a sense of relief that she was even there; and when he had proposed was a fairly close second, but what he was feeling now was just pure bliss. He had escaped from almost certain death, thanks to the love of the woman currently using his shoulder as a pillow, and now said woman was around 9 months from starting a family with him. What could be better?

"Sarah?" asked Chuck, gently jostling her awake. "When did you take the pregnancy test? I wouldn't have thought you'd have had time while we were in Mexico."

"I found out just before we left the house in San Diego," said Sarah sleepily. "I didn't tell you before now because I didn't want you to have any more incentive to save me and get yourself killed while things were still so dangerous."

"You should know by now that I don't need any incentive to try and save you. I would have taken a bullet for you before, now I guess I'd just have to take an extra one to save the baby."

"And that's why I didn't tell you; you would have tipped off the guards even more by worrying about me and the baby. At least we're safe now."

"That we are, Sarah. Besides, it's my job to worry about you. Who else does? The government didn't care if you were happy, just that you were in a fit enough mental state to put a bullet in some random bad guy when necessary. Now just get some sleep and let me take care of you for once, okay?"

"Fine," said Sarah in a mock pout, and she settled her head back on Chuck's shoulder to get some sleep for the rest of the flight. Chuck spent the rest of the flight watching as a serene smile crossed her features every so often, and the rest of the time she looked more peaceful and relaxed than Chuck had ever seen her. It was a good look for her, in his opinion. She seemed to be content to just lie with some point of her in contact with him.

_This woman's going to be my wife_, thought Chuck happily.

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The plane landed at Heathrow pretty much on time, and Chuck gently shook Sarah awake as soon as the plane stopped moving. He had to smile at how adorable she looked just after she woke up, her eyes heavy yet still alert, and she had managed to break through the agent training which led her to attack anyone in the vicinity of her when she woke up unexpectedly. It was a testament to the trust she had in him that her instincts had been overridden by her love for him and she felt secure enough around him that he could actually wake her without breaking a bone, an injury he had come close to suffering on numerous occasions in their brief period in the Florida safe house.

They got out of the airport with no issues, again counting on the fact that the NSA wouldn't be searching for their real names because there was no way a fake passport was going to make it through Heathrow's notoriously tough security with all of the terrorism alerts going around.

They hailed a cab just outside the terminal, and ordered the cabbie to head for one of the hotels in the centre of London. Sarah thought that it would be an easier way to figure out where to go with their new life if they were based, at least temporarily, in the capital, if only because it would be easier to sort out new documents. Sarah also had a contact in the Fulham area where they could get new identities; something that would be essential for them to remain under the radar long term.

The hotel, located just outside Hyde Park, on Nevern Place in Earls Court, seemed to be a fair place to stay at least temporarily considering the funds they still had at their disposal. After leaving the cab just outside the hotel, with a generous tip, they were grateful to escape the cabbie and his various rants.

These ranged from the fact that an idiot was apparently in charge of running the city, a sentiment Chuck agreed with after reading the mayor's Wikipedia page on his iPhone, to the state of the economy and the irony that the current Prime Minister had been Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten years previous, yet the country was still in one of the worst economic crises since the Thatcher years. _If nothing else,_ thought Chuck, _the taxi drivers in London are educational_.

Sarah managed to get the two of them a room extraordinarily easily, although Chuck got some explanation when he saw the teenage boy currently manning the reception desk. Chuck offered to carry Sarah's bags up to her room, which was met with a glare which seemed to say _what? You don't think I can carry my own bags just because I happen to also be carrying your child?_

Chuck didn't know what to say to Sarah's withering glare which seemed to be all too open when it came to her sentiments at that point in time. He put it down to the hormones and went to standard plan B for any male in a relationship with a hormonal woman: avoid until the worst is over. It then hit him that it might make things somewhat worse if he avoided Sarah until she gave birth, so he'd have to deal with the occasional craziness and just go with it.

It also occurred to him that it might not be the best time to bring up something he'd been ruminating over during the flight, but he reasoned that it was probably better to get it out of the way.

"So, Sarah, I've been thinking..." began Chuck before he was cut off by Sarah.

"What?! What have you been thinking about?!" she snapped.

_Oookkaayyy, she's not dealing well with the hormones_

"Well, I was thinking that maybe we should start working for the British Government in some way..." he finished tentatively.

"Why would we want that?" asked Sarah, "after we went through so much to get away from the last government we worked for."

"Well, I know how much you miss your spy career. I saw the sadness in your eyes when you were talking to Ellie about it back in Daytona. I can't ask you to give up something you love so much?"

"What do you mean by that? I can't go on deep cover operations again, not now that I have you. You're more important to me than any career, and now with the baby on its way, I don't see how I could do it anyway."

"I wasn't asking you to go back to that. What if we could get a somewhat normal life but you still get the excitement from your spy work? I know you miss it more than you let on."

"Sometimes you know me better than I know myself," said Sarah with a sparkling of tears, "damn! Why do I keep crying so much?"

"That would be the hormones, Sarah. So, what do you think of that idea then?"

"I don't see how that would work. I mean, how can the life of a spy be in any way connected to a normal life?"

"It wouldn't be totally normal, I admit, but if we joined say, a domestic government agency you'd be able to do what you love and still get some semblance of normality. It's kinda the best of both worlds for you."

"So, let's say I admit that I miss working for the government a little. Even if I wanted to go back to it, it's safer for us to remain under the radar."

"Don't you think that the NSA is going to check our names at major airports around the world? The government can protect us, Sarah. I wouldn't be an asset, just a tech guy or something while you do all the superspy work you do so well. Sarah, I think we need their help."

"You're probably right," said Sarah with a sigh, "but I don't want to put you into that life again. We tried so hard to get out of it, and I don't want it to change you."

"What's going to change? I still have the Intersect, and you know what I'm like. How could I forgive myself if I flash on a terrorist while we're walking down the street and I can't report it, then something terrible happens? Besides, I'll still be staying in the car with a computer to keep me company."

"Okay, Chuck, but I doubt that SIS is going to take us in willingly. We are fugitives, after all."

"I thought you spies had to know the agencies well? We wouldn't be working for SIS if we wanted to stay domestic, which I think we should. I mean, you can't fly too often in your conditi-"

"If you ever, _ever_, say the words 'in your condition' then you'll be on the couch so fast you won't know what happened. Got that?" said Sarah threateningly.

"Yes ma'am," squeaked Chuck.

_Damn, I'm marrying a crazy person_, thought Chuck.

"Good. Now, who would we work for then, Mr. 'I know every intelligence agency on the planet'?"

"The Security Service, of course."

"Who?"

"You really haven't heard of them? I guess you probably haven't worked with them too often in fairness, but anyway, you'd probably know then better as MI5."

"Why didn't you say that? It would have been so much easier."

"I guess I assumed you would have a decent idea what I was going on about. I can't believe I actually out-spied Sarah Walker. Wow, this is a really great day for me. I find out I'm gonna be a dad, then I get to teach the world's greatest spy something."

"World's greatest spy?"

"Of course, not even Bond is a patch on you. In fact, Bond's probably the worst spy in history. No aliases, tons of destruction, everyone seems to recognise him. No, you're definitely better. Do you want a mug with that on it?"

Sarah stuck her tongue out at him playfully.

"Real mature, Sarah, real mature."

"I'll show you mature," said Sarah as she leapt at Chuck, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, forcing him down with her hands already trying to prise open the buttons on his shirt. Chuck recovered eventually, flipping her over so he was staring down at her.

"Feeling frisky today are we, Miss Walker?" he asked, smiling.

"Blame your kid, it's messing with my hormones," answered Sarah.

"I ain't complaining."

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**A/N: I'll cut it there, so we have a fairly cute ending to the first chapter of this fic. More should be on the way fairly soon I hope. Please review, I know you're out there, even you people who aren't signed in. You can still review, you know, just press the button in the centre of the screen below this A/N. Just think, the more reviews I get, the more motivation I have to write, so the more chapters you get before I leave. Leave a review. You know you want to...**


	2. Chuck Vs The Headquarters

**A/N: As you may have seen from my avatar, the last surviving WWI veteran died yesterday morning, so I'm dedicating this chapter to all those men and boys who gave their lives in the trenches over 90 years ago. Lest we forget.**

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Sarah had called her contact in Fulham as soon as she and Chuck had left the airport in order to make their new identities available for use as quick as possible. He had informed her that it would be a couple of days for the relevant government databases to be hacked and the new information to be implanted within them.

This had been made easier by the lapses in data security that the Home Office had suffered in recent years; a laptop with benefits information found by the wrong people or those in the business of setting up fake identities, usually for illegal immigrants, would give those people the information required for a believable forgery. The actual paper documentation was easy to obtain; several former KGB agents had settled in Western Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union and they had the means to obtain passports, or at least believable fakes, along with the other required documents to believably be an EU citizen.

Sarah had specifically requested that their immigration record note that she and Chuck had supposedly entered the UK after a couple of years living in France in order to throw the NSA off the trail. They would be looking for recent immigrants from the USA who used one of Sarah's known aliases, or they would also be picked up by the facial recognition software.

Her contact had apparently come through for her on this request and he had called her on her new mobile phone barely an hour ago to tell her that he had managed to get two American passports with both Italian and British visa stamps. She could pick them up the day after tomorrow once their information had been deposited in the many government databases.

Once they had the passports, Chuck and Sarah would be able to start their new life properly; they could buy or rent a house once they had identification that wouldn't raise too many red flags. Sarah had had her fill of big cities after spending the best part of seven years staying in big city hotels in cities such as Berlin, Tokyo and Beijing.

The Beijing mission had been particularly strange because her cover had been that of a CIA agent. Admittedly, it was a CIA agent who had screwed up pretty badly and was on an embassy assignment, but it was a little close to home for Sarah to be very comfortable in her cover. Still, that mission, like all the others, had been a resounding success for the then rising star of the American Intelligence circles.

_If only my trainers could see me now_, thought Sarah as she climbed back into bed with Chuck after heading into the bathroom to take the call from her contact. He was still sleeping, as he should have been, after Sarah's raging hormones had lead to a very long but very enjoyable night. The mid-morning light was seeping through the curtains but there wasn't really much to do but wait for the new identities to become available, so she settled her head on Chuck's chest and tried to get some sleep; it had been a long night for her too, of course.

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Chuck woke from his slumber first and he was surprised to notice that Sarah was sleeping literally _on_ him, her legs intertwined with his, and her shorter stature resulted in her long blonde hair tickling the bottom of his chin. All in all, quite a pleasant thing to wake up to, but Chuck really had to use the lavatory and couldn't quite figure out how to leave the bed without waking Sarah.

In the end the old 'hug and roll' did the trick, which came as somewhat of a surprise, but it warmed Chuck's heart to see how comfortable the normally jumpy former CIA officer was in his arms. The cute little groan she let out as he detached himself from her almost made him fall more in love with her in itself, but then she just rolled over and carried on sleeping, completely oblivious to him, at which he had to smile.

Chuck finished his morning routine and returned to the hotel room, noting that Sarah was still occupying the bed, and had in fact managed to spread out to cover nearly the entire bed with various limbs. He looked at the clock, and seeing it was nearly one pm, thought that it was probably a good time to get going and do _something_ with their first full day in England. He shook Sarah awake, and noticed the terrible combination of raging hormones and spy instincts as she grabbed his hand and flipped him over the other side of the bed with very little effort.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" she shouted, "I told you not to wake me up like that!"

"I forgot, okay," said Chuck defensively, "I wasn't expecting you to go all crouching tiger, sleeping dragon on me."

"You forgot," huffed Sarah, "what are you going to forget next, my birthday?"

"I don't know your birthday!" protested Chuck.

"And whose fault is that?" said Sarah, poking Chuck in the chest.

_Chuck, don't bait the crazy person, it's not worth a castration_, thought Chuck.

"Errr...mine?" said Chuck tentatively.

"Why would it be your fault? I never told you my birthday! You never listen to me!" shouted Sarah, running into the bathroom.

"What the hell happened there?" muttered Chuck to himself, as he set about fully unpacking the rest of his stuff to give Sarah time to cool off.

A teary eyed Sarah returned to the room shortly after Chuck sat down to begin unpacking, and she ran over to Chuck, burying her head in his chest.

"Oh, Chuck. I'm so sorry I yelled at you, please forgive me?" she said through tears.

"You don't need forgiving," said Chuck, "now where did Angry Sarah go?"

"Why?! Did you like her better? Is that it? You want to leave me for someone better?" shouted Sarah, swinging rapidly back to angry mode.

"Sarah, calm down, you're getting jealous of yourself," said Chuck, laughing. But his laughter tailed off as he saw Sarah glaring his way, "errr, I didn't mean to laugh at you. I'd never leave you for anyone. Why would you think that?"

Sarah's glare faded as she went back to Teary-Eyed Sarah, and she hugged Chuck fiercely again. "I'm just so scared that you'll realise I'm not good enough for you, and then you'll be gone," she admitted.

"You're not good enough for me?" said Chuck incredulously, "you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I never even dreamed someone as fantastic as you would be interested in me. Okay, I dreamed, but I never thought it would happen. If there were words to describe how much you mean to me I'd say them, but there aren't so I can't, so I'll just have to go with I love you and I hope you know it means much more than just that."

"You mean that? A trained killer is the best thing to happen to you?" asked Sarah, confused and touched at the same time.

"Let's go through everything you've helped me with since I've met you, and then I defy anyone to call you _just_ a trained killer. You're more than that, and I'm not just talking about the diamond stealing and bomb defusing. Anything you wanted you could have."

"Hey!" shouted Sarah, throwing a pillow at him, "you can't take my lines and use them against me!"

"I can and I have," said Chuck, laughing. "Seriously though, I wouldn't have made it through my first week as the Intersect without you. I'd be in a bunker in Moab or some other place if you hadn't saved me. In Daytona, if you hadn't tried to hold off those SWAT guys, Fulcrum might have taken me and who knows what would have happened then? Sarah, even discounting all the stuff you did because of your job, you helped me and you're still helping me grow into someone who is somewhere near being worthy of you."

"Really? You don't think you're worthy of me?" said Sarah quietly, as if she were struggling to get the words out.

"Nobody is, Sarah," said Chuck softly, before standing up off the bed. He forgot Sarah was clinging on to his neck which caused him to lose his balance and fall back onto her. Chuck was staring directly into Sarah's eyes, and he didn't think that an entire Fulcrum hit squad could have stopped the magnetism between them leading to a mind-blowing kiss.

All thoughts of a serious discussion with Sarah were driven totally from Chuck's mind as his arms gave out and he fell onto Sarah from a very short distance. Or at least, he would have done if Sarah hadn't shifted under him slightly, so they ended up on their sides, facing each other with eyes closed as they let the passions overwhelm them.

It would be a while before Chuck was in any fit state to make any coherent sound, let alone have a discussion about the various pros and cons of working for another government.

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They had both drifted off to sleep after those particular rounds of love-making and it was nearing four in the afternoon when Chuck's eyes snapped open once more. Sarah was snuggled closely to him again, and he was content to revel in the moment for a little while.

Watching his beloved sleep was one of his favourite pastimes; she looked so carefree in comparison to her wakeful hours, in which she was constantly on the lookout for any possible danger. Chuck noticed every time she walked into a room the way her eyes would dart around, assessing available exits and potential threats. This inevitably took a toll on her, and she always seemed tense while she was awake; it had been too fully ingrained in her to be alert at all times for it to dissipate as suddenly as mist on a country road.

It always seemed to relax Chuck too. Sarah's agent senses were too honed for her not to notice any approaching danger, even in her sleep. With Sarah was one of the few times he had felt safe since that fateful email on his birthday. It was amazing he could somehow trust a sleeping woman, albeit a kickass-ninja sleeping woman, to protect him more than he could trust himself to protect his own body.

Sarah was feeling much the same way. Well, not exactly; she couldn't trust Chuck to protect her body more than she could trust herself; that just wasn't his way. But what she could trust him to do was to protect her heart and fix her soul. He'd gone a long way to doing the second thing completely, but there were still a lot of demons yet to be exorcised from her past. Every day he seemed to get her past one of her issues though.

She always felt like breaking down in tears of joy at somehow getting this man to fall in love with her. Whether it was the pregnancy hormones or just a natural reaction, she wasn't sure, but what she was sure of was that she wanted a gold band on her finger as quickly as possible.

Sarah slowly opened her eyes to see Chuck's large brown eyes staring back at her. He smiled as he took in her lidded expression, still heavy from sleep, and she smiled warmly back at him, giving him a chaste kiss which was nothing like the fires that burned earlier, but more like the embers of a furnace. Extremely hot, and it provided the foundation for a larger fire sometime in the near future. Chuck looked like he had something on his mind, so she looked at him expectantly and waited for him to share his thoughts with her.

"Sarah, I've been thinking. Do you really want to work for the government again? I know we talked about this last night, but I think we should start as quickly as possible if you want to do it," said Chuck.

"I've been thinking about that too. I do want to continue with government work; it's been too big a part of my life for too long to let go totally at once, but what about the normal life you said you wanted? We can't have that if we're both spies."

"It won't be totally normally, I admit, but I'll take that if it means having a happy Sarah in my life. Besides, we won't really be spies like you used to be with Bryce. We'll be more like 'covert cops' if you get what I mean by that. I really think we should do it."

"Are you sure that's what you want?" asked Sarah.

"Yes," said Chuck a little uncertainly, before adding more forcefully; "Yes, that's what I want."

"Then how about we go now before the hormones make me change my mind again. Ooh! That reminds me, we need ice-cream! We _really _need ice-cream. And chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate."

"Actually, it's about four twenty now, so it might be a little late by the time we get to Thames House," reasoned Chuck.

"They're spies, Chuck," said Sarah with exasperation, "they don't work 9-5."

"Maybe not, but civil servants _do_, Sarah."

"Fair point, we'll tell the cabbie to drive quickly. It's not that far from here anyway."

"And where do you propose to find a taxi around here? We don't have time to call one, and I don't see a taxi rank anywhere."

"This is _London_, Chuck. Cabs are like rats; you're never more than thirty feet away from one. Trust me, we'll find one."

"I trust you, shall we go?" said Chuck, motioning towards the door. Sarah was already way ahead of him though, and she was halfway across the room before he'd finished his sentence.

Outside the hotel Sarah's cabbie theory was proved almost instantly, as one of London's distinctive black taxis rounded the corner. They clambered in after Sarah flagged it down, and Sarah was also the one to give the directions.

"Thames House please, mate," she said, slipping into a flawless Hackney accent.

"Gotcha," said the cabbie, showing a similar yet slightly different accent, "what part of Hackney you from?"

Sarah racked her brain for any road name she had seen in one of her brief trips through that part of the capital, "Garrison Lane, you know it?"

"The road next te The Crown pub?"

"That's the one."

"Course I know it, I grew up on Cattell Road. Me dad used to run the pub for a coupla years, that was 'fore he passed on though. Shame, great man my dad. He played a couple of games for West 'am y'know?"

"Really? Anyone I might've seen?" said Sarah, keeping up the conversation.

"Probly not, he was before your time, love. Your dad might've seen him though. Full back my dad was, scored against Liverpool in 64/65. 'Is finest moment, he always used to tell me."

"Sarah," whispered Chuck, "what the hell is he on about?"

"Soccer, Chuck," she whispered back. "Now be quiet, I don't want him to know we're American; cabbies always overcharge you then."

"Got ya, my lips are sealed," he answered.

The rest of the journey went pretty much without incident. Sarah and the cabbie ended up swapping anecdotes about growing up in Hackney, although of course, Sarah's were all completely fabricated. Chuck marvelled at how Sarah managed to keep up a believable accent when apparently it changed depending on the road you grew up on. Either that was sheer luck on Sarah's choice of road, or she knew _way_ too much about the nuances of British accents.

They got to Thames House at around a quarter to five, and Sarah paid the cabbie while Chuck tried to get his head around the protocol for such a thing as going rogue from one agency and defecting to an allied country. If anyone knew Sarah would, so he would just leave it to her to do all the talking, lest he cock it all up by saying the wrong thing.

Sarah joined him on the marble stairs leading to the grand entrance to Thames House. The headquarters of the Security Service, known as Military Intelligence: Section 5 until the mid-90s, was an imposing building, as befitted the base of operations for nearly every domestic security strategy dreamed up by the various suits in Westminster.

They walked through the glass doors looking for all the world as if they belonged there. Or at least, Sarah did. Chuck was lagging behind, looking around in amazement at the mix of old and new styles that adorned the reception hall.

"Yes, can I help you?" asked the receptionist on duty.

"Err, sure," said Sarah, racking her brain for the code phrase to use when requesting help from a friendly agency, "I was told you might be able to help with an import/export problem I've been having."

The receptionist seemed to notice the use of a code phrase, at least going by the slight widening of her eyes as it registered with her.

"Yes ma'am, I can take you to see Mr. Evans now. He's meeting with the Home Secretary at the moment, but I'm sure he can squeeze you two into his busy schedule. His office is just at the end of this hall, I've told his aide you're coming, so you're expected."

"Thank you, I doubt we'll need to bother you again, Miss..." said Chuck sweetly, fishing for a name.

"Fisher," answered the receptionist, before hurrying back to her desk, blushing madly.

"Chuck, if I haven't told you before I probably should've. Tone down the charm, please? I'd hate to have to cause serious damage to one of the girls who tries to hit on you, which will happen eventually. And you'd be on the couch for playing a part in that, so it's in your best interest to only aim the charm offensive at me. Got that?"

Chuck gulped nervously, before quietly saying, "yes ma'am."

Sarah smiled at the effect she could still have on him. She didn't know why she enjoyed messing with him a little. Hell, she knew she couldn't put him on the couch anyway; she'd never get to sleep. Still, Chuck couldn't know that or he'd run riot, like an eight year old who had figured out how to get cookies without his parents noticing. She smiled at thinking of Chuck acting like an eight year old, which was the face she ended up greeting the Director General's aide with.

The aide tried not to focus on that smile, a smile that had turned much stronger willed men than he into putty in Sarah's hands, and his job was made much easier when he saw the ring on Sarah's finger. Taking a deep breath, he pulled his eyes away from Sarah and checked in on the meeting currently going on. The Home Secretary was standing to leave, so the aide rushed to open the door for him. As the Home Secretary departed, he ushered Chuck and Sarah into Mr. Evans' office, shutting the door behind them as they entered.

"So, Agents, what can the Security Service do for you?"

"Well, we're not technically agents anymore. Or at least, I'm not," answered Sarah.

"Would you like to elaborate on that?" asked the Director General.

"I'd prefer to tell you my intentions first, sir. I was formerly employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, and my fiancé also has some experience in working for that agency. We would like to transfer that experience to the Security Service as we recently left the USA to settle in England permanently."

"If you are as experienced as you say you are, you would certainly be an asset to this agency. Providing your story checks out, we would be happy to take you on as agents. Both of you. We will need your names to carry out the checks."

"Sir, I realise this might be difficult, but the reason I left the CIA is because my fiancé was formerly a joint NSA/CIA asset. We fell in love so I was reassigned, but I found out they were going to remove him into protective custody, so we ran. That's how we ended up here. I promise, that was the only reason I went rogue, out of loyalty to my fiancé."

"He really means that much to you?" asked the Director General.

"Yes sir. I'd do anything to keep him safe. Anything."

"Really? I think you two would be an effective team, but I'm afraid that I will have to inform my counterparts at Langley and Fort Meade. I'm sorry, but it's protocol."

"Sir, have you ever heard of the Intersect Project?"

"Of course I have, but that was a failure wasn't it? It got blown up or something, and the Human Intersect went mis...wait, what are you implying? I know the Intersect project was joint CIA/NSA. Is your fiancé the Intersect?"

"He is, sir. We've discussed it, and he would be willing to use that Intelligence to Britain's advantage, if you would let us be made agents."

"SIS recently completed their own Intersect, but we're yet to find anyone who can absorb the Intel safely. If your fiancé can do that, then it is in our best interests to make you two agents. I heard from General Beckman and an as-yet unnamed SIS agent about the effectiveness of the Human Intersect and the team associated with him. Britain would be a safer place; I am sure, with our own Intersect team in place. Do you agree to these terms?"

Sarah was shocked. She was expecting all of this to backfire and she would be forced to either run again or give up Chuck, but her last ditch attempt had apparently worked. She and Chuck both said "Yes" as quickly as their brains could process the words, and the Director General smiled at their coherency and faith in one another. _These two could go far,_ he thought.

"Now, if you've gone rogue, as you say you did," began the Director General, "then the Yank agencies will be looking for you, so you'll need new aliases. We can't officially get you the right identification; if it got out we'd be crucified in the press. Do you have any contacts that can get you the proper documents?"

"Yes, sir. They should be ready soon," answered Sarah.

"Good. Do you have any aliases you want to use? We can issue your agency badges now to save trouble. You'll need to go through training like any other recruit, but agents of your experience should have no trouble."

"We used a lot of aliases escaping from the US government. Can you give us a minute?"

"That's fine, discuss away."

"Please, can I be Han this time?" asked Chuck.

"Chuck, this is important. We'll be going by these names for the rest of our lives. Do you have any serious suggestions?" said Sarah, slamming Chuck's suggestion down.

"I guess Starbuck's out then," said Chuck, sulking a little.

"Of course it is! Now be serious or you'll be Bryce freaking Larkin!"

"Wow, okay then. That's a big threat. How about Charles Pugh?"

"That's better, Chuck. Don't worry; I couldn't call you Bryce for the rest of my life. It'd be too awkward for one thing. Now I have to think of mine. Good thing I'm used to this. Sarah Lloyd. What do you think about that?"

"I definitely like the sound of that, but you'll be Sarah Pugh soon enough," said Chuck, smiling.

"We've made our decision, sir," said Sarah.

"I heard," answered the Director General dryly, "who's Bryce Larkin anyway?"

"Not important, sir. Let's just say it makes my fiancé nervous when his name is mentioned."

"What do you mean by that? It's just he shows up whenever something good happens between us. It's like he has a sensor," said Chuck.

"Right..then..." said the Director General, "what are your chosen aliases?"

"Sarah Lloyd and Charles Pugh," answered Sarah.

"Well then, welcome to the Security Service, agents-in-training Lloyd and Pugh."

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**A/N: I normally put this at the top, I know, but I didn't want to take focus from that message. Thanks to SarahLisaWalkerFan101 for her beta (and to Zerectica for **_**encouraging**_** her to finish it). Your other suggestions will make it in at some point in the near future. Here comes the usual begging for reviews: Please, please, please, please review; I leave in 3 days, so if you want another chapter before then we'll need to have at least 25 reviews. I know I'm cruel, but what can you do?**


	3. Chuck Vs The Security Service

**A/N: Note, this first bit won't make much sense if you haven't read "Casey Vs The Rookies". If you haven't, then go read that (and leave a review lol) so you know what's going on. You guys got this up to 25 reviews astonishingly quickly, so I'm fulfilling my end of the bargain and writing this before I leave. Thanks to her nannyness, SarahLisaWalkerFan101 for the beta. If you like peeing rocks, her stories are for you.**

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Casey had gotten used to his office quicker than he was had expected to. It had been a month since his 'retirement' from the NSA field ranks and subsequent new job training NSA rookies. His first group had all passed barely a week before, in record time and it was also the first time an entire group of five had passed at the first attempt.

Naturally, Casey had taken the credit; he knew that you might as well take the credit when something goes right, because damn sure nobody's going to take the blame when it goes wrong. The success of his first group had increased Casey's standing within Intelligence circles as an effective instructor.

He had formed a particularly strong rapport with Recruit Cobb who, despite a love of weaponry which even surpassed his own, was a very strong candidate and in Casey's opinion would be most likely to end up as a successful agent. Recruit Mitchell was a strange one; he seemed to believe he had factual proof of the existence of alien life. Casey was of the opinion that he was destined for a short career in the NSA.

Recruit Rohrer was the archetype of a soldier. Casey wasn't sure that he could be killed even if you decapitated him and then threw him in a lake. Another one who was probably more suited to the military rather than covert work, but he had adapted well to the training regime, so Casey was less sure of that previous opinion.

Recruit Linderman had some childhood issues to work out; his brother had died while Linderman was still a child, but he had amazing protective instincts. Casey had given him some of the contacts he had built up within the bodyguard network should Linderman want a change of scenery.

Hamilton was an astonishingly strong recruit physically. The PT had been a breeze for him, but a medical test had revealed that he had suffered a trauma to the neck earlier on in life. It didn't seem to hinder him much if at all, so Casey was happy to sign him off with a pass, like all the other recruits.

The reports he had signed off had also given the recommendations for the partnerships to be formed within the team. Rohrer would be working solo; that seemed to be his preferred _modus operandi_, which conveniently left two teams of two. For some reason Cobb worked well in tandem with Linderman, so they were paired together. If Casey's prediction about Mitchell's career longevity was correct, then Hamilton would also likely work well on his own, but his teamwork was a strongpoint of his too, so there were no major misgivings about him working in a pair.

The next batch of recruits were due in soon, according to the Colonel, but Casey hadn't yet received the information on them, which unnerved him a little. The call he received from Colonel Sanders' aide to head up to the Colonel's office A.S.A.P just heightened his trepidation. Still, not one to shirk a challenge, he cleared up the paperwork spread on his desk into a neat pile and headed out the door.

_Good thing Bartowski's not here now; he'd never shut up if he saw me doing paperwork at a desk. Dammit! Get out of my head, Bartowski! I don't want you there anymore!_

Still chuntering internally about the fact his inner monologue appeared to be fixed on that L.A. assignment, Casey made his way up to the Colonel's office. He had built up a strong rapport with his superior officer, and numerous late nights had been spent in the base bar swapping war stories and generally scaring the crap out of any unfortunate trainee who was stupid enough to try to engage them in conversation. The door was open, as it usually was, which was the Colonel's way, so Casey headed straight in.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" he said, announcing his presence to the senior officer.

"Ah, Major. Yes, I have a message for you right from the top; General Beckman has ordered me to tell you this."

"Something wrong, sir?"

"For me, yes, but this is a great opportunity for you, John. It could be a career maker for you. Hell, if you pull this off well there could be stars on your shoulders within ten years."

Now Casey was intrigued, but the sad reality was that he would have to turn this opportunity down if it happened to be another covert mission.

"John, someone at one of the Brit agencies seems to have heard about the results you achieved with that last batch of recruits. They want you to go over to Hereford and train some of their 'Five' and 'Six' newbies for a while. The Brits want to bring their covert capabilities up to our standards, and they don't think their training methods are up to scratch in these modern times. Their espionage was good in the 50's and 60's, but now it's gone a little downhill. They're going to bring in a couple of Mossad trainers alongside you, if you accept, and some CIA trainer called Montgomery. They say he's a legend when it comes to seduction. Not my thing, but I daresay he could teach you a thing or two."

"So let me get this straight, I spent a month here and I'm already being recommended to help out the Brits' training? Sounds a little too good to me, but what the hell, I'll accept anyway; it could be fun."

"John, I don't think I've ever heard you refer to something as fun that doesn't involve Scotch. You getting soft?"

"Not a chance, sir. England's closer to Scotland, I assume. That means that I can head over the border on my day off and get the real thing. Plus if we're going to be relying on the Brits more often, it can only be better if they're somewhat competent."

"Sure, I believe you, John. Shall I call General Beckman and let her know you've accepted?"

"Yes, sir, that'd be best. When should I leave?"

"There's a car outside waiting to take you to the airport. You'll be in Hereford in a couple of days, then you'll get settled in before the rookies show up. Have fun, Major. Hereford's not known for the nightlife."

"I was stationed there before, did some training with SAS. Believe me, sir, those rookies aren't gonna know what's hit them."

"Good to hear, Major. Just come back to Quantico at some point, we could use your skills here."

"I hope so, sir. It's been good working here."

"That it has, now go get your stuff."

"Will do."

_Oh joy, months in Hereford. The only way this could be worse is if by some twist of fate I have to train Bartowski. _

_Actually, that might be kinda fun._

---------------

"Hereford?!" shouted Chuck, "where the hell is that?"

"Calm down, Chuck. You knew we'd be getting training at some point, why are you so shocked?" said Sarah with a slight chuckle colouring her speech.

"I dunno, I guess I just thought we'd be staying in London for a fair while. I wanted to see the Palace and all that touristy stuff. What's so special about Hereford anyway?" said Chuck, sulking.

"It's where the British Special Forces do their training, and apparently where they train their covert agents too," explained Sarah.

"When you say Special Forces..." started Chuck.

"Yes, Chuck. The SAS," said Sarah, realising how Chuck was going to react and unable to keep from smiling.

"Oh crap. How the hell am I gonna keep up with them?" said Chuck in a panic.

"Don't worry, Chuck. You've gotten more fit over the past year. I'll be with you every step of the way, and I might be able to come up with a way to _reward_ you if you do well on a particular day."

"When do we leave?" said Chuck excitedly.

"Chuck, is that all I have to do to encourage you?" said Sarah through laughter.

"Seems to be. I can't help wishing you'd come up with it earlier though."

"Why? Is that all you want from me? I thought you were different, Chuck!" shouted Sarah, fleeing once more to the bathroom of the hotel room they had returned to.

_Those damn hormones! Now what do I do? She has to know I didn't mean it like that. At least, I hope she does. Man, this is screwed up. I should fix this one._

"Sarah?" said Chuck tentatively, knocking on the bathroom door. "I'm sorry if I implied that I only think of you as an object. I don't. Nothing could be further from that. You mean everything to me."

"Chuck, I may have overreacted a little to that. I'm big enough to admit that."

"Well, that's good."

"What?! It's good that I'm big? _YOU _did this to me!"

_How is it that I can send her crazy with three words?_ Thought one part of Chuck's mind

The logical part replied, _Because she's getting PMS multiplied by about a million. I'm sure that we remember that time where she sent us to the store for ice cream and pancakes to satisfy a craving._

The emotional part of Chuck's mind stepped in, _But how can we fix this? I'm sure we all hate hearing Sarah cry._

All of the assorted parts agreed with that assessment. Well, all apart from the Casey conscience that had crept in over the period he had been Chuck's handler.

_Jesus, Bartowski! Do I have to spell everything out for you? She's pissed at you, give it a minute and she'll run out of the bathroom in tears and hug you. It's called pregnancy, dumbass._

This 'conversation' between the proverbial devil, angel and Casey resulted in Chuck walking away from the bathroom door with the message "When you want to talk, I'm here for you."

A couple of minutes later Chuck heard the click of the lock to the bathroom door, and Sarah walked out slowly, looking a little embarrassed by her crazy mood swings. She barely managed to keep from running into Chuck's arms and begging him for forgiveness, but that would just cement her reputation as a crazy person in his eyes. No matter how understanding he had been, it had to be at least a little bit of a burden.

"Why do you put up with me?" she asked softly.

"It's easy for someone you love," said Chuck with a shrug of his shoulders, as if that reason were painfully obvious. It hit Sarah that it probably was obvious to him. Chuck would do anything for her without a thought to his own safety. It had been problematic, of course, when she was his handler, but now it gave her a secure feeling. She thought that the training he was about to receive, while tough, would at least make Chuck's job easier the next time he felt the urge to do something heroically stupid. Not that she wanted him to go risking his life for her.

_No, that's my job, _Sarah thought wryly.

---------------

The orders given to Chuck and Sarah meant they had to get to Hereford within two days. The Director General had pulled some strings to make sure that the Security Service's possible new Team Intersect were happy. He had managed to get the base CO to release a house normally reserved for the permanent residents of the base, which was a privilege not normally granted to recruits. Otherwise however, they would be treated like any other recruit, and they would have to pass every section of the training that a normal recruit would need to in order to be considered as full-fledged 'Five' agents.

These were, in no particular order:

Firearms Proficiency, in which every shot from a standard 9mm magazine had to be put in a 'kill' area from thirty feet within a minute.

Stealth: Using the sniper training area of the Hereford base, a prospective agent had to start from a mile away from the target and get close enough to attempt an assassination shot without discovery by the numerous sentries positioned around the area. A modified version of the final sniper training exercise.

Adaption: A simulated mission gone wrong, and different in each case. The candidate has to complete their mission objective without causing more casualties than originally specified.

Mission planning: The candidate is given an operation objective, and they have 30 minutes to come up with a feasible plan that is then run through a simulation to test its capabilities.

Finally, there was an SAS training program, which was a cut down version of the actual SAS selection program. Normally it took months to complete, but it had been cut to two intense weeks designed to push candidates to their limits. By the end of it, however, each candidate that made it through would be prepared for most of the hostile situations the covert world would place them in.

It took completing the SAS program to be made a full agent, but if all but that were completed, then the Security Service would often take the candidate on as a support agent in a team; provided they could successfully complete a course on technical analysis.

Chuck had looked at the program when it was given to him on his arrival at Hereford, and this had subsequently made him even more determined to pass the SAS course, as in his mind "support agent" was equivalent to "stay in the car". That wasn't going to happen while Sarah was out there in the field though. He was fulfilling his duty as both a husband and a father, even if he wasn't either yet, to protect Sarah and his unborn child. Since the child depended on Sarah, she would have to be healthy. If that meant sacrificing himself then so be it.

---------------

When Chuck and Sarah had arrived, and after being given the program for the training, they had been directed by one of the MP Officers to the house that would serve as their home until training was complete. With any luck they wouldn't be there too long and they could get on with protecting the country again, albeit a different, more civilised country. Sarah was confident that she could pass the espionage aspects of training were she to take the tests now, and Chuck would have a good chance at passing the Adaption and Mission Planning sections. He would need practise to pass the other two, and she wasn't going to take the tests until Chuck was ready. That wasn't to say she wouldn't help him along; her offer of a reward still stood for every successful day.

The SAS training would be first, in order to maximise the efficiency of it. Because of the way the espionage program worked, if the SAS training took place after, then candidates would trickle in and this would result in too much work for the training cadre. Better to have all of the candidates in one. When some inevitably couldn't hack it and dropped out, and then were they to also fail the technical analysis course, then there wouldn't be a waste of resources on the espionage section.

Chuck and Sarah had a couple of days to settle in to their new home before the training started in earnest with the arrival of the other candidates. The house was a fairly standard English home, a three bedroom semi-detached house with a small front lawn and a large back garden. Not at all like the stereotyped cottage with thatch roof.

As they had arrived on a Saturday afternoon in mid-August, the base was practically deserted. Most of the soldiers had decided to pay a visit to the pub just outside the base because of the simple fact it had a Sky Sports subscription, and as barely any of the base personnel were from Manchester, most of them were Manchester United fans, naturally.

A fair few also decided to head along to Edgar Street to watch Hereford United play; Cheltenham Town were in town, Chuck later learned, so there was a large crowd due at the small stadium for the local derby, and soldiers loved their football. This combination led to a crowd much larger than was normally found at the fourth division side's famous old stadium.

Sarah deposited hers and Chuck's bags in the living room and decided to make their first night in the house memorable. Whether it was the hormones or not, she had been keeping Chuck a lot busier in the bedroom lately.

Not that Chuck had any complaints; he was a breathing male after all. She changed into the lingerie that she had found on a very quick shopping trip and found some candles she had packed for some strange reason. Sarah didn't even remember packing them, nor the Arcade Fire album she saw placed next to them.

That was when the penny dropped for her, and she laughed at the synchronicity she and Chuck exhibited astonishingly often. She had been unpacking _Chuck's_ bag by mistake, including the lingerie, which he had bought for her as a present apparently. She supposed he should have had a good idea of her size by now, so she didn't know why she was surprised it fit so well.

Sarah had other things on her mind at that point anyway; namely that she needed the man downstairs to be a lot closer to her in order to get their first night in the house off to a very early and very explosive and passionate start. She had a long session planned, but first Chuck had to draw himself away from the technology she had spotted in the living room.

She laughed softly, _Boys and their toys, he'll certainly prefer what's waiting up here_.

After settling herself into a comfortable yet completely irresistible position, (_Not that I need to put in much effort to be irresistible to Chuck_, thought Sarah, _he seems barely able to control himself when we're in close proximity. How's he going to deal with it when I get muddy and wet in the SAS training?_), Sarahdecided to make Chuck's choice for him.

"Chuck, if you like what's downstairs I think you'll enjoy what's in the bedroom a lot more!"

She barely had to wait a second before she heard Chuck start barrelling up the stairs as fast as he could. He had obviously caught onto Sarah's hidden meaning.

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**A/N: Who knows? If this makes it to 40 reviews by tomorrow night I may end up writing another chapter before I leave. You know what to do if you want that, just click the green button and give me your opinion on the chapter. Even if you hated it.**


	4. Chuck Vs The Quest

**A/N: Wow! I wasn't expecting to be past 40 reviews this quickly! Thanks for all the reviews, guys. As a reward, here's your new chapter. Completely fluffy as a little birthday treat to myself and it has the Sm93Starbuck/SarahLisaWalkerFan combined stamp of approval. Hope you like it.**

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After successfully initiating the bedroom of their temporary accommodation several times over, Chuck had pretty much passed out from exhaustion. Sarah was struggling to get to sleep due to her apprehension about what might happen in the future. She couldn't help wondering if she had made a horrible mistake in revealing Chuck's abilities to another set of government agencies.

It was comforting to know that he would be treated as an agent, and in England's bureaucratic culture it would be almost impossible for him to be taken away from her without someone noticing. His agent's badge would be his shield once he passed the training.

Sarah had no doubts Chuck would pass the training. He had shown remarkable resilience when it came to the physical side of espionage. Saying that, the SAS program was designed to test even the fittest to their limits, and considering Chuck was pretty much average in that respect, Sarah would have to get unorthodox to get him through it.

Unorthodox would take many forms. She would see how he got through the first day, and if he did well, then there would be certain rewards in store for him. Chuck would certainly be the beneficiary of her seduction training, rather than the marks it had been designed for. It might be an idea for her to try and time the rewards so that they didn't happen on a night where heavy PT would be occurring the next day. Things tended to get rather out of hand when their passions were unleashed.

That was the "carrot" approach. She wasn't fond of using the "stick", especially not when it came to Chuck. She would rather see him happy and tired than sad, frustrated, and awake. Sarah had worked with Chuck long enough to know how to push his buttons, and shouting wasn't the answer. Casey had failed to learn that lesson many times over. The only worry for Sarah in terms of that was in her experience, trainers only knew one way to instil discipline in recruits: shouting.

_I guess I'll just have to cheer Chuck up a little_, thought Sarah, looking down at her comatose future husband, who was sleeping with a slightly smug grin on his face. Nothing short of a direct assault on the house was going to wake him, Sarah had learned from previous similar nights, so she decided to settle back on his chest and try to get some sleep.

She was prepared for some sleepless nights, as she had experienced very often back in L.A., although those sleepless nights had been caused by Sarah trying to get a hold of her emotions. Now, it was Sarah trying to figure out how to save her fiancé from hypothetical internment.

_God, why am I worrying so much about this __**now**__? Get a grip, Walker! Worry __**if**__ he fails the training. Just focus on getting him through it._

That little inner pep talk was all Sarah needed to start feeling tired, as if all of the weight of the worry she had been feeling had just fallen off her shoulders and landed amongst the scattered clothes and the suitcase that had been unceremoniously flung from the bed when it got in the way. She settled down and closed her eyes, slipping off to sleep even as the summer morning light first began to creep through the curtains.

------------

This time, Chuck was the first to awaken from his deep sleep. He noticed it was already late morning, and he panicked, thinking that the SAS training started that day. He calmed down after checking the schedule on his phone calendar and seeing that the training didn't start until the next day, luckily.

It was looking like a good decision for Chuck and Sarah to head straight up to Hereford instead of hanging around a London hotel for a couple of days. Chuck was in no shape to be doing anything but stare at the blonde lying next to him. Unless of course, said blonde happened to wake up and be interested in continuing the activities of the previous night. Chuck was a man, after all; he'd have to be in a coma to not be up for that.

Sarah stirred slowly next to him, and she desperately tried to avoid the all-invading sunlight by almost attacking her pillow with her face to try and recapture the elusive sleep. Chuck laughed softly, which earned him the mother of all evil looks from Sarah.

"What! You think it's funny, don't you?" she shouted.

"It's cute," protested Chuck.

"Cute? Cute?! You patronising bastard!" said Sarah, continuing at her abnormally high volume.

_Oh, Jesus. Here we go again. Every damn time!_

"No, sweetie, I didn't mean it like that," said Chuck, trying to solve the situation before it got out of hand _again_, and Sarah ended up in the bathroom_ again_.

"Of course you did! You mean everything you say. Didn't you tell me that once? I distinctly remember you mentioning that!" said Sarah hysterically.

Chuck couldn't see any way out of this situation without tears from Sarah, not that it took much to reduce her to tears nowadays. Then it hit him. The refuge of embattled males with hormonal partners everywhere: a fridge stocked to the hilt with chocolate ice-cream.

"I'll be right back, honey," said Chuck as he tentatively made steps towards the bedroom door.

_Don't turn your back on a crazy person, don't turn your back on a crazy person_ was Chuck's silent mantra as he crossed the room, before he made the fatal error of turning to open the door.

"Hey! Don't you think you can just walk away from this! Look at me, Chuck! And take a good look! Because that's all you're getting from me unless you come back right now!" screamed Sarah.

Chuck desperately tried to ignore the threats of lonely nights; he knew this would all be okay so long as Sarah got some ice-cream. He had had enough experience with dealing with Ellie and Jill to know that was a girl's weakness at times like these. Admittedly, it would take substantially more ice-cream to overcome the extra hormonal craziness, but Chuck had faith in his frozen shield.

He could still hear Sarah's shouts as he made his way down the stairs, still groggy from his exertions in the preceding night. _Sarah's hormones were certainly good for one thing_, thought Chuck, typically masculine at a time like this,_ she's always in the mood. No complaints here._

These thoughts enabled Chuck to block out Sarah's threats involving multiple knives impacting with a very sensitive and important part of his anatomy at an extremely high velocity. He made it to the kitchen, and the fridge/freezer seemed to be bathed in an unnatural light. It was as if all of Chuck's prayers were answered in the form of frozen goods.

He almost sprinted the last few feet to the freezer and opened it, praying he had remembered to put the ice-cream in there the night before after his impromptu shopping trip to mitigate the über-PMS Sarah was currently experiencing. His heart sank as he saw the drawer of the freezer was bare save for a loaf of bread he had placed in there as a spare in case supplies ran low before he could get to the shops.

It sank further when he looked at the table and saw the mostly full Tesco bags still sitting there. _Oh no, please don't say I forgot to put it away_, thought Chuck in despair. His fears were realised though, as he noticed the liquid seeping onto the table from through the thin plastic lining of the bag, due to his rather bad idea of putting the ice-cream upside down to loosen it in the tub, which meant the melted ice-cream was running out of the tub faster than a French soldier could surrender.

That left only one option. Well, two, but the second one involved facing Crazy Sarah without sugar based armour. Chuck would prefer to avoid that if at all possible. The first, and much preferred, option meant that Chuck would have to find a way to replace the sadly now deceased ice-cream without Sarah noticing. A difficult task, to be sure, but with a much higher likelihood of survival than facing Sarah in her current mood.

Chuck could still hear Sarah shouting at him from upstairs, and he knew he had to fix it somehow, and soon. So he grabbed the phone and started making calls to various personnel he had befriended on his tour through the base.

"Hey, Corporal Smith?... I need some help... You know where my house is?...Good, could you come over as soon as you can, please?"

"Sergeant Johnson?...Good thing you're home. Listen, my fiancé is having some serious anger problems this morning...yeah, it's exactly what you think. I need someone to run interference while I try to save what's left of my balls...you'll send someone 'round? Fantastic! You're a lifesaver."

After making those couple of calls, Chuck tried to find a way to delay Sarah's inevitable explosion. He was considering trying to shift her to crying mode, but she'd need ice-cream to cheer herself up after, and he couldn't bear to hear or see Sarah cry, so it was the lesser of two evils to keep Angry Sarah mad at him for a while.

He was frantically searching for something, _anything_, that would take the edge of Sarah's madness, and he found it, just underneath the ice cream tub. After washing the worst of the ice cream residue off the wrapper, he took the object of his (temporary) salvation up to the bedroom, where Sarah was stomping around in a tantrum as if she was Godzilla and had heard that Tokyo now had a no-giant-dinosaur-bent-on-destruction policy.

He tentatively walked through the door, ducked a shoe which was hurled at him, and desperately held aloft his trophy so that his beautiful yet destructive bride-to-be could see it.

"Is that...chocolate?" said Sarah hopefully.

_Please please please please please let this work,_ thought Chuck; he was feeling pretty exposed where he was crouched.

"It is chocolate!" shouted Sarah with glee, as she snatched the bar out of Chuck's hand and started devouring it before Chuck had even caught onto what was going on.

"You know," began Sarah with her mouth full. "This won't protect you forever."

_Damn, I was hoping she might not figure out what I was trying to do._

"Can't a future husband bring his future wife chocolate?" asked Chuck in an attempt to throw Sarah off the track.

"He can, and I'm not complaining if that's the avenue you choose to take, but it's a little obvious, Chuck. I did just threaten violence against Little Chuck. I bet this is a delaying tactic so you can try and fix it. Am I right?"

"Fine, fine," said Chuck, holding his hands up in defeat. "You got me. But you have just as much to lose as me if you put me out of commission for a couple of nights."

Instead of agreeing with Chuck, as he was expecting, Sarah got a murderous glint in her eyes.

"You better run before these chocolate endorphins run out. I feel Angry Sarah coming through."

"I'll be...uh...yeah...bye!" said Chuck before bolting for the door. Sarah then dropped the chocolate bar on the bed and collapsed in laughter at how scared Chuck looked. It was fun to innocently mess with him, and the still hormonal part of her brain that she had confined somehow was informing her that the chocolate was running out. The logical part informed the hormonal part that Chuck's fear could lead to ice-cream, or at least more chocolate.

This made Hormonal Sarah happy.

------------

Chuck exited the house, meeting up with the backup he had called in. They looked at him quizzically; wondering why he wasn't in the house. He obliged their looks with an answer.

"Guys, Sarah's gone feral."

"What!" said the two soldiers with unbridled amusement.

"I gave her some chocolate to delay the inevitable 'raining down of all of hell', but it seemed to just make things worse."

"Oh man," said one of the soldiers, who was a father himself. "You've just committed rookie mistake #1. We've all done it, but to be honest, if you're giving your better half chocolate when she's hormonal you better hope that you've got something to back it up with, otherwise she's gonna be on the hunt for sugar. Seriously, it's the equivalent of doing the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona while draped in the Chinese flag."

"What do I do?" asked Chuck, looking at the experienced man for advice.

"First we need something to take her mind off chocolate."

"Which is?"

"You."

"What! I'm not going back in there!"

"Trust me; I've heard it all before. She threatened your man parts didn't she?"

At this Chuck only nodded, as if remembering something traumatic.

"Standard tactic. If my wife did what she was threatening to do every time then we wouldn't have three kids."

"So what should I do?" asked Chuck.

"Just go in there, try and take her mind off things. But most importantly, say _nothing_. I can't stress that enough. To be honest, she'll probably explode at you anyway, but say nothing committal. Just nod your head occasionally and let her vent. We'll pick up the supplies you're going to be needing, but unless I'm mistaken, you'll be in the SAS training tomorrow won't you?"

"Yup," answered Chuck. "Can't say I'm looking forward to it."

"You'll be fine. Think of this as practice for the interrogation section. Give us twenty minutes, tops, and you'll be so deep in sugar you won't be able to move. If we're not back by then, give her this and get the hell out of there," said the soldier, pressing a couple of Cadbury's Dairy Milks into Chuck's hand.

"Are you maybe not taking this a little too seriously?"

"Trust me lad, it sounds like your lass is one of the tamer ones I've had to deal with. One of the guys who bought his girlfriend on base ended up being put out of the window by her because he said she was looking a bit rounder than usual."

"Well, that was dumb."

"You said it, that's why I told you to keep your trap shut. No telling what might creep out or how she's gonna take it. Just pray for the best, son, and we'll be here to bail you out soon enough. Good luck."

"Err...thanks," said Chuck to the retreating back of the soldier, who was walking to the Land Rover parked by the driveway of Chuck and Sarah's house. Chuck turned back to the house, steeled himself, and let himself back in.

He was barely through the door when a blonde ball of fury descended on him.

"Who were you talking to out there?! You think I'm crazy don't you? That's who you were talking to wasn't it! That was a doctor you called to take me away because you think I'm crazy! I can't believe you! I'm having your kid and all you can think of is to try and send me to the crazy house-"

_Just let her vent, Chuck, just let her vent. You can do this_, thought Chuck over and over while Sarah continued her rant.

"- and another thing! What was with the delaying tactic? You can't handle me, Chuck? Is that it? You want me all fat and waddling around so you can outrun me? Well I've got news for you, I'm gonna kick your ass every day from now until when the baby's born, just to prove I can-"

Chuck toned out again, wisely choosing to let her rant, and in the process, getting him slowly closer to when the soldier's would be back with ice-cream.

"- don't think I didn't see the melted ice-cream! Don't I mean enough to you to put it in the freezer?! Are you even listening to me?!"

"Huh? What?" said Chuck somewhat unwisely.

"Oh! That's just fantastic! You never listen to a word I say do...you..." said Sarah, trailing off as she saw the soldiers walk in. "Who the hell are they? Are they coming to take me away? I won't go!"

One of the soldiers gulped nervously, and both shot sympathetic looks towards a very shell-shocked Chuck.

"Your fiancé decided to surprise you with this," said the lead soldier, handing Sarah a bag full of chocolate ice cream. Her eyes filled with delight as she saw the tubs, and she practically skipped to the kitchen to get a spoon before disappearing back to the bedroom to attack the dairy desserts.

Chuck was still staring at a spot just to the left of where Sarah had been standing, his eyes glazed over. He was obviously in his "happy place", and he looked happy to be there.

"Lucky bastard, I wish I could have done that and gotten away with it when Mary was pregnant."

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**A/N: Yes, an entire chapter of hormonal fluff. That's your reward for surprising me with a ridiculous amount of reviews. If you can get it up to 60 I may be able to write another before I leave, but be warned; I may not be entirely sober as I write it. Press the green button like before, you know you want to.**


	5. Chuck Vs The Run

**A/N: Man, I think I set an impossible task and then you guys go and fly past 60 reviews like it's nothing. You are all awesome. But SLWF is awesomer because she beta-d this for me. So, this is the last chapter before I leave, as I'm getting on a coach in about 4 hours to take me to Paris. Yay!**

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It was still early in what more or less qualified for morning, but even in late summer, when the nights were relatively short, there was still no light save for the streetlights creeping through the crack in the curtains. Sarah was awake however; the alarm had roused her, yet not her still slumbering fiancé. That hardly seemed fair to Sarah.

"Chuck, get up!" said Sarah, shaking him and getting out of bed.

"Huh? Come back to bed, sweetie," groaned Chuck as he bemoaned the loss of contact with his future wife.

"We have to get up. The training starts today, remember?" responded Sarah, and she noted the way that Chuck's eyes widened in shock. He had obviously forgotten about the training completely. _Although_, thought Sarah, _maybe I should have gone a little easier on him last night, but it was so worth it._ She smiled at the way Chuck tried to cover up his confusion.

"But it's still dark out! I'm not even sure there's a time you can call this. It's not night, because you've just woke me up, but it can't be morning because it's still dark. Maybe we should sleep until things become more defined...yeah...sleep," said Chuck, rolling over and closing his eyes once more as he tried to recapture the elusive sleep once more.

"Dammit, Chuck! You need to get up! Don't make me get violent!" shouted Sarah.

"Ice-cream violent?" asked Chuck playfully.

"Damn straight!" said Sarah with a laugh. "Now get your scrawny ass out of bed before I have to explain to the C.O. why one of his recruits has a broken finger."

"What? No threats to the crotch this time?"

"No, that's the one part of you that is somewhat useful in the morning. We may be able to take advantage of that in the shower if you get mov-"said Sarah before she was cut off by Chuck running past her.

Sarah had never seen Chuck move so fast. Not even when he was being chased by the "bad guy of the week", as Chuck had coined it, had he shown the type of acceleration that had just been put on display. _Why didn't I try that route first? It would have saved a lot of effort_, thought Sarah ruefully, before calmly moving to join Chuck in the shower; she wanted to at least show some measure of control, even if she was just as excited as Chuck for their early morning "warm up" to get them ready for the gruelling day ahead.

-------

She had to laugh at the way Chuck had managed to shed all of his clothes, get the shower running _and _organise all of the various grooming products Sarah used in the few seconds he had actually been in the bathroom.

"Wow, Chuck. You really want this, don't you?" laughed Sarah. Chuck just shrugged as if to say, _well, duh!_

"Then how about this? You remember that reward we talked about if you do well in training?"-Chuck nodded vigorously- "Well I think that I should probably give you a teaser of that so you know what to expect, don't you?"

She didn't get another word out as Chuck almost lunged for her, meeting her mouth with a loving yet passionate kiss. She coyly pushed him into the shower before slipping out of her nightwear. It was certainly an ego boost to note the way Chuck's jaw dropped _every_ time he saw her. Sarah didn't want to dwell on what it would be like around six months down the line. It would only cause tears in her fragile emotional state caused indirectly by the little piece of life slowly growing inside her. _There, nice happy thoughts, and no tears_, thought Sarah to herself.

It was then Chuck's turn to be surprised by the ferocity of Sarah's romantic assault on his senses. He was actually forced to back up slightly to maintain his balance, and as he and Sarah pressed themselves together their movements resembled a dance somewhat, as their passions carried them around the surprisingly large shower cubicle. _Almost as if the contractors designed it for this_, mused Chuck in one of his rare lucid moments when he wasn't madly kissing, being madly kissed or struggling to get his breath back after a particularly long kiss.

Despite Sarah's best intentions, they were probably going to be _very_ late if things carried on the way they were going.

-------

As it turned out, they weren't that late. This was mostly down to Sarah's ingenious idea to get everything sorted out before they got on with the night's activities the night before, so even though they barely had time to grab a couple of cereal bars on the way out of the door, they were just about in time to latch onto the end of the line of recruits heading towards the assembly area. Both of them breathed a small sigh of relief; it wouldn't be a good start to their new careers by being late to the first day of training, especially as they were essentially on probation due to the circumstances surrounding their entry to the agency.

The instructors were waiting at the other end of the asphalt assembly area in their military fatigues. Their faces were covered in camo paint so it was difficult to make out their features, but one of them certainly looked familiar to both Chuck and Sarah, but he wasn't looking in their direction so they couldn't be sure. Sarah did have a brief moment of alarm when she saw the US Marine Corps markings on the instructors arm, but she realised that the only Marines she'd ever worked with had been the PT instructors at the Farm. _Maybe that's why he looks familiar_, she reasoned, trying to calm herself; _There aren't any other Marines I've ever met that I remember_.

Chuck was a bit too preoccupied with focusing on making it through the day to let his gaze linger on the familiar instructor. He was admittedly a lot less tense after the morning's activities, but he still wasn't looking forward to what lay ahead. He thought it was probably going to come down to saying a small prayer that his injuries didn't end up being _too_ debilitating.

"Recruits!" shouted what seemed to be the head instructor. He had a nametag which read "Hockenberry" on his left breast pocket of his fatigues, but there were no other markings with which to identify him save the distinctive badge of the Special Air Service. "Here in the S.A.S we have a motto: 'Who dares, wins'. That means you put in your best effort! If I see anyone come back from this little introduction without a ton of sweat pouring off them then that unfortunate person will know the true meaning of work! We'll continue the pleasantries once you're all nice and warmed up. Once round the base, follow Captain Mainwaring so you don't go wandering off in the wrong direction. Off you go then, don't just stand there! Move!"

-------

The recruits, most of them with military backgrounds, reacted without thinking and took off after the captain, who had already disappeared around the corner of the assembly area. Sarah followed after a split second; she had been lost in trying to figure out who the mystery instructor was. She grabbed Chuck to get him moving too, as it wouldn't be very good for him to stand out. Sarah had enough experience with this sort of thing to know that standing out was never a good thing. It was far better to just mould into the crowd of recruits.

"Sarah," hissed Chuck as they rounded the corner. "How far is it round the base?"

"About two and a half miles, I think. That is, if we only go around the recruit part of the base. You know, barracks and quartermaster's offices and stuff like that."

"Two and a half miles?! Sarah, I can't do that!"

"You can, Chuck. I'll help you through it. Just trust me; it'll be over before you know it."

"Man, I wish I could flash and get a ton of physical skills instead of data. That'd be so much more useful," grumbled Chuck.

"I wouldn't want that to happen. You wouldn't need me to protect you then, Chuck. I'd be so worried for you."

"Ah come on now, I'd still be the same bumbling nerd inside. I'd just know kung-fu instead of something useless like how much sauce the President puts on his fries."

"I can't imagine you doing kung-fu, Chuck. You'd have your own style of it, like you usually do."

"You mean like, Chuck-fu?"

"Exactly like that. Besides, you're doing fine anyway. Just concentrate on getting a breathing rhythm going and you'll make it to the end of this."

"You know, you could just go with your capabilities and catch up with the front-runners. I'll be fine here, just plodding along."

"I'm not leaving you here, Chuck. This'll be easier for you if you have someone next to you to help."

"I thought you might get a kick out of beating a bunch of tough macho guys at their own game. Must be pretty embarrassing for them to get their asses kicked by a pregnant woman."

"I'm not _that_ pregnant at the moment."

Chuck laughed slightly at how that sounded, but he figured out fairly quickly that he should probably just concentrate on the breathing side of things.

"Not _that_ pregnant? How the hell does that work?" he said incredulously.

"It means I'm pregnant enough to kick your ass for making fun of me, but not too pregnant that you can outrun me," said Sarah dangerously.

"I can try!" shouted Chuck before he sped up, leaving an amused Sarah in his wake.

_Oh, boy. He's going to regret that one in a few hundred yards_, she thought, shaking her head at her fiancé's naïveté when it came to physical exertion. He had gotten better through necessity since he had received _that_ email on his birthday, but he was still nowhere near an agent's standards. Sarah had an idea to get him through the remaining mile or so on pure adrenaline if it looked like he was flagging a little.

A couple of hundred yards down the road it looked like Chuck was experiencing the regret at performing that lung-bursting run. That was when Sarah put her plan into action, as some analyst at the CIA had figured out that when startled, the human body could produce enough adrenaline to produce the required responses to simulate normal aerobic respiration for a short time. It was all part of the natural instinct to escape unexpected predators; a role Sarah was about to play. She accelerated past a couple of surprised runners until she was about five metres behind Chuck, and then she made her move.

"Chuck! Get back here! Is this what you're gonna do when we're married? Leave me behind because it suits you? Is it?! Because if it is, I take back what I said this morning about the incentive system! You're gonna be on the couch for a loooong time, mister!"

This shock had the desired effect on Chuck, as the adrenaline flooding his system when his ears picked up Sarah's dulcet tones, and his animalistic instincts basically went _AAH!!! Crazy person, 6 o'clock! Get the hell out of here!_ meant that he suddenly found a burst of energy that carried him through to the end of the run, where he almost collapsed in exhaustion as he paid back the oxygen debt he had run up. He stayed standing however, as he knew his day was just beginning. If that was the _warm up_ though, this was going to be a whole new level of hell, usually reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theatre.

Sarah walked next to him, breathing a little heavily, but otherwise not too much the worse for wear. She had an amused twinkle in her eye as Chuck put the pieces together in his mind.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" he accused playfully.

"Did what?" said Sarah innocently, batting her eyelashes at him.

"You know what; you saw I was struggling so you scared the bejeezus out of me so I would carry on. Thanks for that, by the way. I wouldn't have made it through that run without your help."

"Hey, if you ever need a crazy person to motivate you, I'm your girl."

"Damn straight you are," said Chuck with a smile.

"Always," was Sarah's one word answer.

They shared a small kiss before the instructor seemed to notice them and decided break time was over.

-------

"Okay, recruits! Get your arses over here and in line now! That means you two aswell, lovebirds!" he finished, addressing Chuck and Sarah, who broke apart guiltily and joined onto the end of the line.

"Now, I'd like to introduce you to your training cadre. If you don't hate them by the end of this, they haven't done their jobs properly. You will follow everything they say to the letter! You do not call them by rank, only by 'sir' or 'Instructor'. Am I understood? Or do you idiots need it broken down into smaller words?"

"Understood, sir!" shouted the recruits. Hockenberry picked up on the distinctive accents of Chuck and Sarah, and moved along to them in the line.

"Ah, looks like we have a couple of Yanks with us this time. You're not gonna get homesick are you? I hope not! I'm being paid a lot of money to drag all of your sorry, pathetic excuses for bodies through this course and I'm gonna do it if it kills me. I will not have that jeopardised by some homesick little boy who cries for his mother. Are you going to cry for your mother?"

"No sir!" shouted Chuck. He was right too; what would be the point in shouting for his mother? He might shout for Sarah on occasion, but she was in some sort of position to help.

"Well I don't believe you, little boy. You and your little girlfriend might seem happy now, but when I'm through with you you'll be wishing you were back home! Now," he began, addressing the group as a whole. "Based on results from the NSA training camp at Quantico, we will be assigning a pair of recruits to each member of the training cadre as a mentor arrangement. It seemed to work for them, so I don't see why it won't for us. To facilitate the smooth implementation of this, the NSA have kindly sent along their head of training at Quantico. Allow me to introduce Major John Casey, US Marine Corps."

"Oh crap," was uttered at the same time by both Chuck and Sarah.

"Do you two have a problem with Major Casey?" asked Hockenberry. The people his voice was directed at caused Casey to turn and see who Hockenberry was looking at. What met him was completely unexpected.

"What the hell are you two doing here?!" he shouted, causing several of the recruits to recoil in shock.

"Do you know these two, Major?" asked Hockenberry.

"You could say that. I'm gonna need to have a little private talk with the two of them. Permission to remove them, sir?"

"Granted."

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other with trepidation, but they had no choice but to follow. They grasped each other's hand for support and stood close together as they followed Casey to the corner of the assembly area.

"You two have precisely one second to explain what in Reagan's name is going on here before I complete my final NSA assignment set by General Beckman. I think you know what that is," said Casey meanacingly.

"Meep," was all that came out of Chuck's mouth, so Sarah had to take on the mantle.

"Well, Casey. I guess I should start explaining then..."

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**A/N: That's all I have time to write before I leave, but we'll dive straight into the main bulk of the story when I get back. I can't blackmail you into reviewing anymore, so I'll try a different tack. You want to review. You want to press the green button and tell me your thoughts on the chapter.**

**See you in a couple of weeks,**

**Kroblues.**


	6. Chuck Vs The Handler

**A/N: I finally got the motivation to write this, and it's the much awaited (at least, I hope someone out there was waiting for this) Casey confrontation. Thanks for the truly staggering number of reviews you've given me so far. And thanks to SLWF for the beta, even though she wasn't at a computer. Now that's dedication!**

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"Well, Casey, I guess I should start explaining then..." began Sarah confidently, although the slight tremor in her hands betrayed her nervousness at sitting before the man who quite literally held her (and Chuck's) fate in _his_ hands. It wasn't nerves for herself though; she had proven that she could take Casey in a fight before, but she was worried he might get to Chuck before she could deliver the mother of all beat-downs on him. Chuck noticed the shake and grasped her hand, causing Sarah to look up at him in surprise. When he smiled reassuringly at her she almost completely lost her train of thought, as they gazed into each other's eyes.

Chuck's seemed to be saying, _go ahead, I trust you._

To which Sarah gave him a look that said, _what if he doesn't accept the reason? I can't lose you now._

Again Chuck's face showed his complete trust in Sarah, which enabled her to take a deep breath and push the worries and fears down deep enough to keep her voice steady. Their gazing match was interrupted by an impatient cough from the man sitting across from them.

"I still don't like feeling like the little fat kid, Bartowski," said Casey, as if that explained everything.

It did to Chuck, of course, who broke his gaze on Sarah and looked back at Casey. Sarah, on the other hand, was completely confused by Casey's cryptic sentence.

"What?" she asked, questioning both men.

"We'll talk about it later, sweetie," said Chuck. His term of endearment didn't sound nearly as forced as it did during the cover/really real/sort of a cover but we're not sure/maybe there's something there/who knows? relationship, which was brought right back to the front of the memories of both Chuck and Sarah with the other member of the former Team Bartowski sitting across from them.

"You two make me sick, you know that?" said Casey in disgust. He'd thought the Idiot was intolerable when Walker was away, but this new form of lovey-dovey Idiot was on a whole new level. "I give it a week, tops, before she has your kid. That is, if your swimmers are up to it," finished Casey evilly, blissfully unaware of what he had just _willingly_ stepped into.

"Funny you should mention that, Casey," said Chuck, never one to pass up an opportunity to enrage his former handler. He glanced down at Sarah's yet-to-bulge stomach to make his point. It's fair to say that Casey got the message; at least going on how his eyes bulged wider than when he'd heard Firefly had been cancelled.

It was one of the few TV shows that Casey had actually liked (_especially that mercenary guy, he pulls of the goatee better than I ever could_, thought Casey) because it had aired during a rare time that Casey had been between assignments, and his next assignment had been a babysitting one much like his last assignment in order to ease him back into the job after a difficult mission in Russia.

This meant he had plenty of free time to watch TV; and the fact he was performing a role not dissimilar to Walker's as a cover partner, coupled with his asset being a pretty big nerd, meant that Casey had ended up watching most of the 14 episodes, and the ones he missed had been religiously caught up on. Casey figured Bartowski would never let him forget it if he ever found out that Casey had actually spent the night before Serenity was released camping outside a cinema along with the other Browncoats.

He even owned his very own brown coat, not dissimilar to the one worn by Nathan Fillion (Government connections can get you anything). Another thing in the bank of trivia that "The Idiot Won't Find Out About Me" that Casey had very quickly decided on once the full extent of Bartowski's infuriating way of figuring out personal details had become clear. He could tell Walker had fallen victim to that very quickly indeed. _Hell, she probably blabbed her name to him before what's-her-face, Carina, had left with those infernal handcuffs of hers_.

"Walker..." began Casey, before falling silent.

"Wow, is the great John Casey finally speechless?" said Chuck in mock amazement.

"You'll be speechless when I rip out your vocal cords and use them to tie my boots," said Casey menacingly.

"Ah, there's the Casey we've all come to know and love," said Chuck in amusement.

"And there's the Moron we've all come to know and tolerate. Seriously though, how did you manage to trick Walker into procreating with you?" asked Casey in disbelief, albeit with a slightly evil smirk on his face.

"Why? Do you have that little faith in my ability to charm women?" asked Chuck.

"Honey, _I_ have little faith in your ability to charm women, knowingly at least. Not that you ever needed to charm me," finished Sarah, bumping up against Chuck and giving him a little smile.

"Bartowski, that's too easy for me to even bother with an answer. But no, it's not that, any idiot could see that you could set Walker off by looking at her"-Sarah blushed at that comment- "Don't try to deny it Walker, I've seen the water bill for your hotel; only about one in three showers actually involved hot water. Funny that, isn't it?" said Casey with amusement; he had missed ribbing his partner about her lady-feelings.

Forrest was basically like him (_I never got Bartowski back for that crack he made about her being a more masculine version of me. Revenge will be sweet_, thought Casey) on the emotional front, and the only emotions she seemed to show towards the asset were barely bridled contempt and annoyance at being forced to babysit what at that point had been one of the more annoying human beings in history. This made ribbing _that_ partner a lot more difficult, so he'd given up after a couple of weeks.

"So why was it so difficult to accept that Sarah might want to be with me?" asked Chuck in confusion.

"Oh, that wasn't the difficult part. It was accepting you actually had male genitalia that was difficult."

"Oh ho ho, very original, Casey."

"If it ain't broke don't fix it. Speaking of...Walker, how do you propose you'll be able to distract some male mark enough to let the Idiot over there complete whatever mission you're on. I mean, in six months time even you won't be much of a looker," finished Casey, laughing to indicate that he was in no way serious.

Chuck had noticed the rage emanating from Sarah as Casey had said that. It was as if she were literally projecting various shades of red into the immediate vicinity of her.

"Oh..." he muttered, "bad move, Casey."

"Huh?" said Casey, surprisingly oblivious to the very obvious danger in front of him. Chuck just pointed to his left and then more or less dived for cover. Casey looked back at Sarah just in time to see her leap out of her chair and virtually jump across the desk of Casey's temporary office to get to him.

"You bastard!" was Sarah's almost feral cry of rage. Casey was too surprised to do anything but try to defend himself before Sarah's blind fury commenced the beat-down she had been reserving for the event that Casey decided to complete his last NSA assignment.

"Did. You. Just. Call. Me. Fat?!" she yelled, desperately trying to do some damage to Casey other than bruise his palms and forearms where he had blocked the blows.

"No! I swear I didn't! Bartowski, do something!" said Casey, regretting the last words as soon as he said them.

"Did...you...just ask _me_ for help, Casey?" said Chuck in disbelief.

"Yes, now would you go do something to stop your insane girlfri-" he was cut off as Sarah heard the 'insane' and redoubled her efforts to cause damage on Casey.

"Do you have a fridge, Casey?" asked Chuck.

"What the hell use is that gonna be?" shouted Casey in desperation as he tried to fend off Sarah's blows.

"I have a plan," said Chuck as he looked around and found a fridge in the corner of Casey's office.

"You are _NOT_ gonna kiss me again, Bartowski!"

"Jeez, you make one mistake, _ONE_, and you get it held against you for the rest of your life," said Chuck, rooting through Casey's fridge.

"The rest of your life is gonna be a very short time if you don't do something soon!" warned Casey.

"Yeah yeah yeah, just like usual," muttered Chuck, "hey Casey, why do you have chocolate ice-cream in your fridge?"

At those words Sarah stopped the attack on Casey. Luckily she hadn't caused much damage in her rage, but she looked at Chuck who was standing there with a 'rabbit in the headlights' expression. His mind was racing with numerous self-preservation thoughts.

_You're standing in between a pregnant woman and sugar! Move, you idiot!_

_I can't! She's too beautiful when she's crazy!_

_Oh hell, she's coming towards me! What do I do?_

_Man, this is a terrible, horrible, not good, really bad day. And it's about to get worse. Please move, legs, please. React!_

Luckily his legs did react in time to get out of the way, because Sarah wasn't stopping for anyone. The run had dropped her sugar levels past 'pregnant normality' and she was really feeling the cravings. Sarah supposed that was the reason for the reaction she had against Casey's badly-timed comment. She saw the magical sight of the tub but then her heart fell. She didn't have a spoon.

_Do I have the lack of dignity to just eat it without the spoon?_ She asked herself, but Chuck seemed to be reading her mind as the metallic coldness of a spoon was pressed into her hands. She shot him a grateful smile before returning to the cold sugariness of the ice cream and taking the tub back to the desk where she started eating happily, leaving the men to stand there in disbelief.

"Uh..."said Casey articulately.

"Yeah..." finished Chuck lamely.

"Bartowski, why do you have a spoon?" asked Casey

"You learn to adapt," said Chuck with a shrug

"Fair enough. How do you deal with this?" asked Casey, waving his arms in the vague direction of Sarah, who was still eating, completely oblivious to the conversation going on around her.

"I honestly have no idea. I have a happy place," explained Chuck.

"Which is?" responded Casey

"Me kicking Bryce's ass," said Chuck.

"Yeah...about that...not gonna be happening anytime soon," said Casey cautiously

"A man can dream, can't he? I mean, we might run into him somehow," responded Chuck.

"Only if there actually is an afterlife," said Casey bluntly. Chuck finally caught onto the not so hidden meaning behind Casey's words.

"Oh," he said lamely. "How?"

Even Sarah had stopped eating now, and was looking up at Casey with sadness. Even though she didn't love Bryce anymore, and probably never truly had, she couldn't help but be sad at hearing the dangers of his job had finally caught up with him.

"Outside your safe house in Daytona. Fulcrum attacked us and Bryce was presumably undercover in their task force to find you two. He ended up getting hit during the attack. He didn't make it."

"What happened?" said Chuck, still in shock. Sure, he didn't particularly like Bryce, but he didn't want the guy to die.

"Mistaken identity," responded Casey.

"Wait, you shot him, didn't you?" said Sarah, struggling to keep her agent front up, but just about managing to do it. If Casey noticed the cracks, he was at least discrete about it. Chuck didn't seem to have any such qualms about showing emotions though. He was still fighting to keep a modicum of composure, but he was fighting a losing battle. Bryce had been his best friend at one point, even if that was about seven years beforehand.

"Better me than some bastard who'd miss and get him in the stomach," said Casey with a surprising amount of tact considering the subject matter.

"Well, there is that," began Sarah. "Casey, can we have a minute?"

"Oh no you don't, you're gonna explain to me exactly why you decided to betray your country and risk the Intersect falling into Fulcrum's hands. Then you're going to convince me not to kill you and take Bartowski back to Ft. Meade with me, and most importantly of all, Bartowski is going to beg for my forgiveness."

"Err, what? Why would I need forgiveness?"

"Because you got me DEMOTED!"

"Oh crap."

"Damn straight. You're pretty goddamn lucky I got promoted when I joined the training section of the NSA or you wouldn't be alive right now. Right then, why don't we start with why you betrayed the country, Walker?"

"I think you know why I did it," said Sarah sadly; she was struggling to see a way out of this situation as her gun was still at the house. Recruits weren't allowed to carry unless ordered to.

"I could probably make a good guess, and he's standing next to you, isn't he?"

Sarah just nodded at this; what was the point in denying what was so obvious?

"Now we've got that sorted, I'm asking myself, why haven't I left your bloody corpse in this room and taken Bartowski on a plane with me back home? You have an answer for me?"

"Casey. I know you don't think that I do, but I know you," began Chuck.

"Chuck," whispered Sarah. "Don't piss off the guy with the gun. Basic Spy 101. I think you missed a couple of classes somewhere along the line."

Chuck ignored Sarah for the moment because he thought he had an idea to stop Casey's itchy trigger finger from being scratched in his or Sarah's general direction.

"I do know you, and I know you have a very defined moral code. Not even at your coldest would you be able to kill Sarah, not now you know that she's pregnant. We both know you couldn't do that."

"Let's say you're right about that. But I didn't get a rep as a burnout for no reason. I've killed plenty of people who got in my way in my time."

"Even so, Casey, this is an unborn _child_ we're talking about. And just in case that isn't enough, wouldn't we be helping America indirectly by working for MI5?"

"Just how would you do that?"

"I'll be getting the Brit Intersect put in after the training. Just think what might happen if I flash on a terrorist and stop a major attack. That can't happen if you take me to the bunker! We'll be of much more use to national security, even America's, if you just let us go. Please, Casey, I'm begging here. Just let us go, finish up this training and go back to Quantico, just don't tell anyone you saw us. Please," finished Chuck desperately.

Sarah was looking just as desperate; she knew just how close they were to this whole thing ending in a gout of flame from the muzzle of Casey's weapon. Her, the baby and Chuck. All gone in two shots. Three lives that all hinged on what was going on in Casey's head. All she could do was to hope Casey would do the right thing. She thought he would, but one could never predict the actions of a fellow agent, not even if one had worked with them for years. Agents were taught to switch personalities as often as possible to throw off enemies; nothing made it easier to blow a cover than a bad habit.

"What in God's name are you two recruits doing in my office!" bellowed Casey. "Get the hell out and back on the parade ground!"

Both Chuck and Sarah were too stunned to do or say anything. Could they have just gotten away with it?

"I don't see any movement! Go before I give you a taste of Vera!"

_Casey named a gun after Jayne's gun in Firefly? _Thought Chuck, _shame I won't get to rib him about that._

With that the two terrified, relieved and altogether shocked recruits made for the door, Sarah leaving the ice cream tub discarded on the table and they headed to rejoin their fellow recruits. Casey followed them, keeping a good distance away, occasionally bellowing instructions to them if they fell slightly out of step in their marching, as all recruits were required to do. Once they made it back to the parade ground Chuck and Sarah moved onto the end of the line, and it appeared they had unfortunately interrupted Captain Mainwaring mid-rant.

"I see you Yanks have seen fit to grace us with your presence. Did we have fun on your little break?" he asked sarcastically, and then saw their faces. "Who pissed on your chips? Doesn't matter, I don't care. You're just recruits, and you'll be working double as hard if you want my respect, even this snotty nosed little kid over here-Pike, I think- has more respect from me at the moment."

"We're dead..." muttered Chuck.

It was a sentiment Casey agreed with; no recruits talked on the parade ground unless spoken to by a superior.

_This could be a fun two weeks_, thought Casey, almost beside himself in anticipation.

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**A/N: Long delay I know, but I was on a holiday, as you know, and when I got back I had no motivation. I promise, the training will be in the next chapter. Reviews give me the motivation to write; you gave me about 50 in 3 days, you got 4 chapters. Guess what's gonna keep that rate of updates up? That's right, more reviews. I'm thinking the next chapter'll come after 100 reviews. **

**Yes, I'm evil, but I like it.**


	7. Chuck Vs The Exercise

**A/N: I've taken pity on you guys, because the whole fanfic breaking thing kinda screwed everything up, and I wasn't getting any email alerts, so sorry if I didn't reply to your review. Thanks to sarah-fan over at Strahotski, I think her pen name is disabrina here, for the beta. Here's the training chapter. I should probably tell you that this was the planned chapter 2. Yup, I went **_**really**_** off track with the fluff. However, if I want this fic to finish anytime soon, I'm gonna need to get back onto the arc. Here goes nothing.**

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Chuck was three days into the SAS training program, and to everyone's amazement (even his own), he was somehow managing to hold his own against some of the fittest people on the planet. Sure, he was near the bottom of the group; it would have taken a miracle for anything else, but he was just about managing to scrape a pass, which was all that he or Sarah really cared about.

Of course, that mild success brought about far, far bigger rewards from Sarah. It was lucky that there was a week's break between the two sections of the training; otherwise Chuck would be in no state to perform adequately in the espionage part. Sarah had confessed last night, while feeling very emotional (as always seemed to be the case, Chuck noted), that she was feeling guilty about manipulating Chuck with sex like she had been doing, at least in her eyes.

Naturally, Chuck had reassured her about that. He made sure that she knew what was going through his mind about her 'incentive' system, and how very much he was in favour of that, and that he would much prefer if she would continue that system. He had had a go at persuading her to include successful missions in the incentive scheme too, but Sarah had just muttered "men" and rolled her eyes. He still got the reward for that day's work however.

"Bartowski! Head in the game!" was Casey's shout. Obviously Chuck's reminiscing about last night hadn't gone unnoticed.

_Dammit, Chuck. You need to focus on this_, he silently berated himself.

The first four days of the training had been extremely intensive physical work, but now they were beginning to move onto the more fieldwork-related aspects of the program. Today, they would be working in pairs, along with an instructor, in a race to reach a specific objective that was marked on their map. It was a fairly simple orienteering exercise, but considering the pairs were being dropped around various points of the Herefordshire countryside and told to head to the location, without being informed of their _current_ location, it was a pretty large challenge.

Naturally, Chuck had been paired with Sarah. Not even the training cadre were mean enough to split up what was very obviously going to be the partnership anyway if both passed the training. They had noticed the upturn in Chuck's performance when in close proximity with Sarah, so they wanted to exploit that as much as possible. Considering Casey was acting as a mentor for both Chuck and Sarah, he had been chosen as the instructor to go along with them for this exercise.

Chuck was more or less thrown out of the van that was transporting them by Casey, and he turned back to give him a smartass comment, relishing in the fact that there were no officers nearby to come down on him like a ton of bricks after he said it.

"Wow, I've never been forced to _get out_ of the car before. You feeling alright, big guy?" he said with a smirk.

"Better than you will be if you don't zip it, Bartowski. I'm still your superior here, show some respect," answered Casey angrily.

Chuck gave him a Benny Hill-esque salute and made his way over to where Sarah was standing. Then something hit him.

It was the map that Casey had thrown at him. Closely followed by the compass.

"Ow, that's gonna leave a mark. Didn't your mother ever teach you it's rude to throw?" complained Chuck.

"She also taught me how to shoot, and you may have noticed I don't have to protect you anymore. You've lost your shield, Bartowski, so try not to piss me off."

"Chuck, sweetie," whispered Sarah into Chuck's ear. "Don't piss off the Sugar Bear, k? He's our ride back to base, and I'd hate to have to kill him for hurting you."

"How is it you manage to sound cute and threatening at the same time?" asked Chuck in amazement.

"I'm a woman. It's what we do, get used to it," answered Sarah.

"I plan to have the rest of our lives to get used to it, and I won't love you any less for it either. You're perfect just the way y-" he was cut off by the sounds of Casey mock-retching in the background.

"If you two are gonna do that the whole time we're on this exercise I'm gonna have to shoot _something_, and considering you two are the only things I see at the moment, well..." he trailed off, leaving the rest to Chuck's overactive imagination.

"Shall we just get going?" said Sarah impatiently.

"At least one of you two suckers is making sense. I'm going to be staying in the background for this one, no help from me unless you want to fail," said Casey.

"Can we still talk to you?" asked Chuck.

"Only if you want my foot up your ass. I'll have to ask Walker if you're into that sort of thing," said Casey, enjoying his once-favourite pastime once again.

"He doesn't, Casey, but if you're that interested I'd be happy to fill you in on what he does like," said Sarah mischievously.

"Oh, hell no! Just go, I'll be following you, and no talking to me!" said Casey in disgust.

Sarah winked at Chuck to let him know she was joking about the previous comment. Apparently she enjoyed messing with Casey just as much as Chuck did.

"It's nice to have the old team back together, don't you think, Sarah?" asked Chuck loudly.

"Oh Jesus Christ," muttered Casey in despair.

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"Admit it Casey, you missed us," said Chuck triumphantly about half an hour into the exercise. Sarah was navigating while Chuck decided to use some initiative and used the GPS function of his iPhone to make sure they always knew where they were. They were making good time, but with no way of seeing where the other teams were they were relying on Casey to inform them of any developments.

"I missed you like a dog misses a cat, now shut up, Bartowski."

"Nah, I know you like us really. Beneath that extremely terrifying exterior is a man who feels, who feels _deeply_. Go on, admit it, you love us, John Casey."

"Chuck, be quiet, Casey isn't reacting too well to your particular brand of humour," said Sarah, indicating towards the trainer standing well behind them.

Chuck looked back and what could only be described as an angry tomato with a gun was looking back at him. He snapped his head back forward, but he was certain he could hear the steam coming from Casey's ears.

"Please tell me there isn't long left, Casey's starting to scare me," he whispered to Sarah.

Sarah chuckled at Chuck's naïveté. _Does he really think that an orienteering exercise would last less than an hour?_

"Chuck, there's at least three more hours to go. That's the whole point of this."

She could swear that Chuck nearly fainted there and then with the shock of that revelation.

"3...hours?!" he choked out. "I'm not sure I can walk for that long."

"You'll do fine Chuck," she reassured him. "You know why? Because I'll be here with you. Every step of the way."

"There's a metaphor in there somewhere," said Chuck as he continued walking on.

"I bet there is," answered Sarah. "I've just thought of how you're going to get through this, and whatever comes after this exercise."

"There's gonna be more?" asked Chuck in shock, completely forgetting Sarah's implied new incentive scheme.

"Of course, it wouldn't be much of a challenge if there wasn't, now would it?"

"I suppose not. What do you think it'll be?" he asked, if only to take his mind off the walk ahead.

"With luck, something that lets me shoot at you," came the shout from behind Chuck and Sarah.

"Nice try, Casey!" Chuck shouted back, "I know you care really!"

Sarah rolled her eyes at the bickering that the two just couldn't get out of their system. She'd put a stop to it, but it was just too damn funny for her to see Chuck deliberately pissing off a man that could probably break him in half without breaking a sweat. Yet Chuck knew that Casey couldn't do that, so he just continued with the taunting without a care in the world.

"You know, one day he's going to snap," warned Sarah.

"I'll take my chances; there's nothing funnier than watching Casey get angry when you know he's trying to hold it all in. Like a 6'4" game of Buckaroo, only with a gun."

Sarah started laughing uncontrollably at the image of Casey being forced to stand in the middle of a circle of children while they all loaded various accessories onto him. She wondered if he'd kick his back leg when he went off or not.

_Wow, where did that train of thought come from? Focus Sarah, you're meant to be the one navigating!_

"Chuck, where are we?"

"Here."

She clipped him round the back of the head with the map for that comment.

"Grid Reference."

"Oh right, 8465 3280. Sorry," he said, grinning sheepishly.

She used the compass to orientate the map properly, and saw that they were not too far from the first checkpoint.

"Okay, we want to be heading a little more north-easterly, and the checkpoint is on a path that crosses a stream about half a kilometre from here."

"Which way's north-east?" asked Chuck.

She sighed, and just pointed in the direction they should head. "That way," she added, as if it were needed.

"Right then. You doing alright back there, big guy?" shouted Chuck.

"No talking."

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They made it to the first checkpoint fairly easily after that. There was a minor issue when Chuck made an ill-timed comment just before he crossed the stream that nearly ended up with Casey pushing him in, but Sarah intervened in time, which probably saved Casey's job as there was another instructor waiting on the far side of the stream for them.

"Ah, Pugh and"-he looked down at his clipboard that held the relevant information- "Lloyd, is it? How are you two finding things so far?" he asked.

"Not too bad, sir. We haven't had any issues thus far," answered Sarah.

"Major Casey? Anything to add?" the instructor asked Casey, whose hand was still occasionally drifting towards his gun whenever he looked at Chuck.

"Nothing, no. Pugh just reminds me of an asset I had about a year back. I'm still working through the desire to shoot him. These are two very strong recruits though, if I didn't know better I'd say Lloyd had more than a couple of years experience in fieldwork."

"Impossible, Major. I doubt they'd be going through this training if they were already agents, would they?" said the instructor incredulously.

"No, I guess not. Pugh here is starting to show some ingenuity though, I'd get that down if I were you, the team he's likely going to be a part of alongside Lloyd is going to need someone who stays in the car," he said the last part with an evil grin.

Chuck gave him the Bartowski equivalent of a death glare (only Ellie had truly mastered it), while Sarah was stoic on the outside, but inwardly agreeing with Casey. She was always worried when Chuck got out of the car to try and help them, even if his assistance had saved them on more than one occasion.

_Maybe I'll worry less once he has this training complete_, she thought, but she doubted that the worry would ever go away. More than once she had found herself doubting the decision to go back to government work, but she reassured herself by thinking that this job was at least less dangerous than her previous role. Most missions, if not all, they'd have police backup, and that meant Chuck could largely stay out of the firing line.

Sarah knew that she only had three or four months at most before she'd be joining him in the 'stay in the car' role, but considering that meant her being left alone with Chuck for large periods of time, it was something she was largely looking forward to. Up until then though, she would likely be leading the police forces, while Chuck directed proceedings from the van/car using his Intersect knowledge to identify suspects. All in all, how the _original_ Team Bartowski was supposed to work.

"So where next, Sarah?" asked Chuck, shaking her out of her reverie.

"There are three more checkpoints before we reach the end, which is back at the base. The next one is about"-she checked the map- "two and a half kilometres from here. It's an abandoned farmhouse at the bottom of a steep hill; we should see it when we make it out of this belt of trees."

"You can tell all of that just from the map?" asked Chuck in amazement.

"Most of it, yeah. Didn't you ever join the Scouts?" responded Sarah.

"Come on, do I look like I'm built for the outdoors?" said Chuck, but then he realised the implication of Sarah's words. "Does that mean that you were in the Scouts then?"

"Yes," Sarah admitted. "It was the one constant I had between cons; Dad always tried to get me signed up to the local Scout troop."

Chuck was almost beside himself with glee at finding out more about the _real_ Sarah, and Casey groaned behind them when Chuck started a happy dance. Sarah rolled her eyes at it, but she was once more heart-warmed by his antics.

_God, Chuck, how did you get so perfect? _she thought dreamily, before she berated herself for sounding more like a lovesick schoolgirl than a hardened agent. She couldn't stop herself from staring at him though, a fact that Casey noticed pretty quickly.

"For the love of Reagan, Walker! I would've expected it from Bartowski, but you?"

Sarah just shrugged as if to say, _I can't help it_, and Casey went back to his standard defence mechanism: threatening Chuck.

"Bartowski," he said menacingly, "maybe I wasn't clear before. I don't have to protect you anymore, and we are a _long_ way from any roads."

Chuck calmed down immediately. He didn't think Casey would really do it, but with the way Casey always seemed to be on edge at the moment, he wasn't taking any chances. He pulled out his iPhone to check their current position, and relayed this to Sarah, who adjusted the map accordingly. Chuck marvelled at how seamlessly the two of them seemed to be working as a team, and he hadn't seen any indication from Casey that they were falling way behind, so he assumed things were going well.

_For once,_ thought Chuck.

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There weren't any issues with getting to the next checkpoint, or indeed the one after that, so Chuck and Sarah were making some good progress with making it to the end of the exercise, and in good time too, according to Sarah. Hers was an opinion that Chuck trusted too; she had once walked ten miles through a jungle because Bryce had screwed up and made them miss their helicopter extraction, so they had to cut across country, avoiding pursuers, to make it to the backup drop point.

That being said, it wasn't an easy experience for Chuck; his lifestyle hadn't led to much physical activity before the Intersect, and even then he didn't spend that much time running or walking large distances; usually only the distance required to get into a position for Casey or Sarah to take out the bad guy running after him.

"Please tell me it's nearly over, Sarah," whined Chuck. "My feet can't take much more of this."

"I think it is, we've just passed that last checkpoint, and it's normally about an hour between each checkpoint, so I think there's maybe two more kilometres to walk. That's all," said Sarah soothingly.

"Man up, Bartowski," said Casey, who was still staying a way back from Chuck and Sarah. "There's plenty more PT to come today after this. Don't want you passing out on us, do we?"

"No, we wouldn't want that, would we," said Chuck sarcastically.

"Less of the lip, Bartowski," was Casey's only response as he went back to a threatening silence.

Sarah was a little surprised that Chuck had managed the climb that they had to do just after the second checkpoint so well, especially after she had accidentally dislodged a stone about half way up which then proceeded to roll down the hill and shatter on a much bigger rock at the bottom. She was expecting that to do some damage to his nerves, but he had proved her wrong by scrambling up the narrow path that seemed to be the only route up the hill only a short time after she had completed her ascent. Chuck had decided to help Casey out by shouting 'encouragement' down at him as he made his way up, but that quickly stopped when Chuck could hear Casey's growling even from a couple of hundred yards away.

About three quarters of an hour later, they had managed to cover nearly all of the two kilometres remaining and were bearing down on the Hereford SAS base. Sarah had taken pity on Chuck and gone easy for the last stretch, so he would have some energy left for the rest of the day. They had begun the exercise at exactly 10 am, and it was now just after noon, so they had made good time in Sarah's opinion. They had to let Casey out in front once they reached the base, because their recruit badges wouldn't get them through the security checkpoints on the outer regions of the base.

"Easy, corporal, they're with me," was all Casey had to say to get them through the gates, and he led them at a punishing pace through the entirety of the base until they came to a stop at the recruit parade ground. Chuck was a little upset by that, but he figured it was probably a fair amount of revenge for what he had put Casey through today.

Chuck and Sarah were the third pair back of six, which fit in well with Sarah's 'don't stand out' policy. Captain Mainwaring seemed very surprised to see them back this quickly; he obviously hadn't expected the 'soft Yanks' to be able to keep up with the rest of the group. He sent them to the quartermaster's office to drop off their equipment for that day's exercise, which was a bag specifically weighted to simulate the equipment a soldier would be expected to carry on a typical patrol.

Chuck was full of relief when he finally managed to get that weight off his shoulders; though he had long grown used to it, it was a strange sensation to be able to lift ones shoulders without a large amount of effort. Even Sarah looked relieved for this exercise to be over, and now they had some free time until the rest of the groups showed up. Chuck went to ask Captain Mainwaring just how much free time they had, and he was unsurprisingly brushed off. Casey, on the other hand, was much more welcoming, which came as a shock.

"I don't wanna know what you've got planned, but I'm sure the 30 minutes that the instructor for the last group is estimating should be plenty of time. Get back here for 1300," said Casey.

As Chuck walked off to join Sarah, they were just within earshot, so Casey heard Chuck's comment to Sarah after he had informed her of their 30 minutes free time.

"Sarah, what time is 1300?" Chuck had asked.

Casey shook his head and muttered, "moron", before getting to work on cleaning one of his many guns.

As it turned out, half an hour probably wasn't enough time for what Sarah had in mind.

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**A/N: I know I said that this was the whole training chapter, but I thought that was a good place to end. Probably one or two more chapters for the training, I dunno. Anyway, let's see if we can't get this past 100 reviews this time. **


	8. Chuck Vs The Test

**A/N: Well, this'll be the SAS training finished. Just the espionage section to go and we're back on the story arc. I hope you're sticking with me for all this stuff that hasn't really gone anywhere yet, if you are, then thanks! If you're reviewing, thanks again! One more thanks, this time to the supremely awesome SLWF for an insanely fast beta that allowed me to post this tonight rather than tomorrow.**

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With a week to go of the SAS training program, Chuck was still managing to astonish nearly everyone on the course by keeping up with, and on occasion surpassing, the more experienced soldiers. The training group, originally twelve in number, had been reduced to nine due to the natural trimming of numbers in order to make sure only the best made it through.

Chuck was feeling more drained than he had ever been in his life at this point, although at least he was now making it through the morning run a lot easier and without needing Sarah's 'encouragement' to fuel him on the last few hundred yards. Of course, the training was still incredibly tough on his body, and Chuck was discovering muscles that he never knew he had. Unfortunately, this discovery was always a very painful experience. Chuck was becoming increasingly grateful for Sarah's abilities in the art of massage, otherwise he doubted that he'd even be able to move after a particularly tough day.

A few days ago he had experienced maybe his finest moment in 'spy world'. He had finally beaten Sarah at something! That had resulted in Chuck being forced to forego the reward that had been on offer from Sarah for a good day, but he was happy to be able to avoid the couch. Sarah's competitive streak seemed to be more pronounced because of her baby-related emotional instability, and Chuck had found out about it in a big way when they got back to the house after that day's training. In the end, Chuck had been forced to grovel his way back into bed after being unceremoniously kicked onto the floor by Sarah.

"Pugh, pay attention," said Casey, accompanying that with a slap to the side of Chuck's head. "This is important, so try not to screw it up."

The remaining training left for the recruits in the SAS program was to learn the necessary skills for an effective hostage rescue. This would then form the basis for the final test, the results of which would decide whether a candidate passed the SAS section of the training. Today they would be learning how to clear a room effectively and as safely as possible, which would play a big part in any hostage rescue and would also have many 'real world' benefits when it came to assaulting a building that likely housed a suspect.

The weapons that the recruits would be using were simple paintball guns. This was because the 'enemy' in this training would be played by an instructor, and at the close range that would occur in this exercise, blanks would be too dangerous. The aim for this exercise wasn't for accurate shots, just that the recruits could train their reactions enough to get a shot off in the general direction of the instructor. An SAS pair could open and clear a room similar to the one being used, which was an open plan hut with two side rooms that weren't visible from the door, in less than thirty seconds. This was down to the fact that in the SAS, they kept pairs together as much as possible, so each one knew exactly what the other would do purely because of the amount of time that they had spent working together.

Naturally, the recruits were not expected to be that quick, but a time of under a minute was generally viewed as acceptable once the procedure for room clearing had been explained and after a couple of practice runs. By the end of a full SAS course, the recruit would be able to perform the actions without thinking, leaving their mind open to take in their surroundings and eliminate any enemy quicker than they would be able to if they were focusing on where they should stand. That was the aim of any military training; to make a soldier be able to act on instinct and think about their actions later. There simply wasn't enough time in this course to do that, but so long as the recruits had the procedure down, they should be fine, considering it would be very unlikely that they would be clearing a room without police backup.

"Okay, recruits. Here's what we're gonna do," began another member of the training cadre, Captain Melchett. "Captain Mainwaring and I will show you the procedure to stealthily gain entry to a room and clear it before your enemy has time to react. In this exercise we will vary the number of enemies that you face, but you will need to take them all out before clearing the room."

With that, he and Captain Mainwaring jogged up to the hut that would serve as the room to be cleared, and when both had reached it and were standing to the side of the door ("Never stand in front of the door; you never know when one of the buggers is gonna come through it or start shooting," Mainwaring had said to the group). Melchett, who was standing closest to the door, reached up and silently unlatched it. Once he had done that, Melchett pulled open the door, and Mainwaring swept past him, moving rapidly into the room.

He saw the single enemy that was waiting on the other side of the door, completely unaware up until then of the presence of two SAS troops, so his weapon was lying on the table behind him. Before being given the chance to grab it, Mainwaring fired three rounds; two at the chest and one at the head, his paintball gun coughing slightly and kicking a small amount in his hands, but nothing compared to the recoil that the veteran Captain was used to from his favourite rifle.

All of the rounds impacted on their expected targets, and Melchett, who had followed Mainwaring into the room barely a second after, set about checking the other two side rooms. With two loud calls of "clear!" Melchett then moved back to the doorway, tapping Mainwaring, who had been covering the main room, on the shoulder as he left to indicate that they should leave. With a final shout of "out" the two experienced soldiers left the room and re-latched the door. The whole operation was over in twenty-eight seconds.

"Now that is what I call military," said Casey in admiration.

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**Take 1: Chuck**

"Pugh, you're up."

"Eh?" said Chuck, confused.

"The first run you get to go with your mentor, which just so happens to be me. God help you if you get in my way, and if we take longer than a minute, not even Lloyd's gonna be able to save your pasty ass. Got that?" finished Casey threateningly.

"Got it," said Chuck. "Shouldn't I have a weapon for this?"

Casey rolled his eyes and threw him one of the paintball guns stacked up to the side of the line of recruits.

"Don't drop it, Pugh," added Casey, but Chuck could see what he really meant was "_don't drop it and shoot me in the leg."_

"Have a little faith, Casey," answered Chuck.

"Just shut up and listen to the advice I'm going to give you. When we get to the door, you'll stand behind me. As soon as I open it, you run in, try not to trip over the door frame, and shoot whoever you see moving in there without thinking about it. Then cover me while I clear the rest of the rooms. Did any of that penetrate your thick skull?" finished Casey, tapping Chuck's head for emphasis.

"Sure, run up to the door, and shoot anything that moves once we're inside. How hard can it be?"

"We'll see. Remember, less than a minute or Lloyd's gonna be down a father to her baby," said Casey, still unable to resist threatening his former asset. Chuck wasn't bothered by it anymore, which unnerved Casey somewhat.

"Are you ready sir? Pugh?" asked Captain Mainwaring.

"Ready sir," answered Chuck.

"Ready, captain," answered Casey.

"In your own time then," said the captain, waving his arm towards the hut.

"Remember, Pugh, silent. Not a word from now on unless it's 'clear!' Understand?"

Chuck just nodded, not willing to push Casey on it while he held anything resembling a weapon, especially with how much Casey was looking forward to shooting _something_. Casey indicated forward, and the two men set off at a jog to the side of the hut. Casey reached the side of the door first, and Chuck managed to trip over his own feet as he tried to stop and ended up slamming into the corrugated metal side of the hut. Casey shook his head in disgust, but proceeded to open the latch anyway. He knew what would probably be awaiting Chuck on the other side of the door, but Casey viewed this as revenge for all those sandwich conversations.

Chuck ran around Casey's considerable bulk, and before he could even set his second foot in the hut he was pelted repeatedly by paintballs fired by the enemy that had taken cover behind the desk, which had been overturned.

"Ow! Ow! Son of a! Stop shooting already!"

Casey pushed Chuck out of the way and laid down some suppressing fire on the desk, which allowed him to move into the building. Chuck followed tentatively soon after, and as soon as the instructor posing as the enemy next lifted his head it was covered in paint from both Chuck and Casey's weapons. Mostly Casey; Chuck wasn't particularly accurate with his shooting, but at least one of the shots that landed was Chuck's.

Casey then moved through the other rooms while Chuck covered the room, and barely a couple of seconds later Casey was moving out, and tapping Chuck on the shoulder to signify that he should move out too. They walked back to the rest of the recruits, Chuck at least having the good grace to look slightly embarrassed, and Casey looking pretty angry with his unwilling protégé.

"Well, I think we can all see where that went wrong," began Captain Mainwaring.

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**Take 1: Sarah**

Casey took Sarah aside to give her supposedly the same advice that he gave Chuck, but both of the former agents knew that Sarah had already been trained for this, and had passed with flying colours, as she had everything else.

"Listen, Lloyd. You and I both know that you could probably do this on your own, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to show too much skill," warned Casey.

"I know, I know," said Sarah flippantly. "I'll screw up in some way, don't worry."

"Are you two ready?" asked Captain Mainwaring.

"Yes sir," answered Sarah, and Casey also answered in the affirmative.

When Captain Mainwaring gave the order, both Casey and Sarah took off at a dead run to the hut, and Casey again took up his position next to the door, while Sarah stood next to him, trying to figure out just how to avoid showing her obvious proficiency in this particular exercise. She worked it out just as Casey flung open the door.

Sarah moved past Casey and entered the room, but she didn't move far enough to the left to let Casey in. This was, of course, done on purpose to show her supposed inexperience. Her weapon came up and she put a perfect grouping of shots into the target's chest, followed by a 'miss' into his leg, again to mask her skill.

She acted as though she had realised her mistake when Casey tried to move past her and found his way blocked for quick movement. As she jumped out of his way, Casey gave her a look as if to say, _did you do that on purpose? Or are you just going soft_. She answered his look with an almost imperceptible wink, and Casey moved on to check the other rooms. Two quick shouts later and the two of them were out of the hut and moving back to the rest of the recruits.

"55 seconds, not bad for a first time, Lloyd. But you did make a slight mistake on the entrance. I think we'll partner you up with Pugh next time. The two of you should be more coherent than working with someone that you haven't met before last week."

Casey was silently very annoyed about that comment from Mainwaring, but he could see the logic in Sarah's choice to make them seem less coherent. If he was being honest, he could have been doing a better job of it for his own part.

_Good luck dealing with Mr. Graceful over there, Walker._

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**Take 2: Chuck and Sarah**

"Chuck, are you ready?" asked Sarah. She knew that Chuck had the mental speed to be able to complete this task; it was just his feet that tended to let him down.

"Yeah, I can do this. So long as my legs and feet work together I should be fine. Which way round do you want us to go in?" said Chuck, deferring to Sarah for leadership, as he always had.

"You unlatch the door and I'll go in first, you support me if I need it and then clear out the side rooms," explained Sarah.

"Sounds like a plan. It's a step up from staying in the car at least," joked Chuck.

"When did you ever stay in the car?" said Sarah in amusement.

"Okay, fair point. But still, it would be nice to be able to hold my own in the field, or at least not have to have you babysitting me every time I get out of the car," said Chuck, his voice tinged with regret for adding that particular burden to Sarah's already difficult job.

"Hey," she said soothingly. "You wouldn't be the man I fell in love with if you didn't try to help whenever you could."

Chuck looked up at Sarah and could see the emotion written all over her face as she told him that. Not that he wasn't sure she loved him before; taking someone on the run from the government and risking almost certain death in the process, and accepting his proposal had already proved that beyond any doubt, but this felt different. He knew Sarah wasn't very good with words, and he accepted that he would probably always be more open with his emotions than her, but this was new.

Sarah was opening up to him like never before and day after day she was exposing more of the 'inner Sarah' to him. She continued her speech about how much she loved him and wanted to be with him for the rest of her life, and Chuck wanted her to continue, but his body wasn't cooperating with his brain, and before he knew it he had captured her with a passionate kiss.

Sarah was surprised to be cut off in mid-flow like that, but she wasn't in any position to complain about the way Chuck went about it. It was all she could do to stop herself from tearing his fatigues off, which wouldn't exactly help him when it came to getting respect from anybody in the recruits and training cadre.

Casey turned and saw Chuck and Sarah fall to the ground, still locked together as close as they could make themselves. With a muttered "Christ on a bike..." he turned round and looked for something to erase _that_ particular image from his mind. Anything would do. _Can't these two keep it together for five damn minutes?! Bartowski I didn't expect anything different from, but Walker was an agent for Christ's sake! Calm thoughts John; don't throttle the recruits, calm thoughts..._

A shrill whistle from Captain Mainwaring was just enough to break through the rapidly clouding minds of both Chuck and Sarah. They slowly disengaged from each and backed away, making their way up off the ground (and neither had any idea just how they had got there) and looking down at the recently disturbed earth with differing degrees of embarrassment. Chuck was wishing the ground would just swallow him up, while Sarah on the other hand, who had learnt not to let much, if anything, bother her, was only slightly embarrassed; the only outward indication being a red tinge to her cheeks.

"First of all, Pugh, well done on bagging a bird like Lloyd, but keep it out of the training, or you'll be running so many laps you'll be on first name terms with all of the paving slabs. Secondly, get moving on the exercise!"

He said the last part at such a high volume that even some of the recruits standing behind him, some of whom had been soldiers in various regiments before moving to the Security Service, jumped at the noise. Chuck and Sarah were both startled into immediate action and went to pick up two more paintball guns from the rack, Sarah only stopping to re-button the first couple of buttons on her fatigue top where Chuck's fingers had been a little too nimble.

Chuck noticed that the hopper of his weapon was empty, so he refilled it, and couldn't resist indulging his nerdy side while he had a bit of downtime, not after what Sarah said by way of final instructions:

"Unlatch the door and follow in straight after me, we've got an advantage over the rest of these."

"Which is?" Chuck responded.

"We've worked together for two years, so we know what the other is going to do."

That was when Chuck just had to spoil the serious mood by saying something incredibly Chuck-like.

"Shiny, let's be bad guys."

"Chuck, that doesn't even fit," said Sarah, trying to keep in her laughter.

"Close enough, let's do this," said Chuck seriously, which again made Sarah struggle to force down her laughter, but she managed it just in time to hear Captain Mainwaring tell them to go.

Chuck moved up in front of Sarah, and he managed to keep control of his feet this time, so he silently moved into position next to the door, and unlike with Casey, he seemed to be hyper-aware of where Sarah was at all times. Once he felt that she was close enough to him, he reached up and pushed the wooden block that acted as a latch to a vertical position, unlocking the door. He knew that Sarah was already moving, and he flung the door open with perfect timing. Sarah was through the gap before the door was even fully open, and she saw three enemies this time; far too many for her to take out on her own.

That was when she was thankful that Chuck moved in. Even in the dark he knew where she was and what her movements were likely to be; a product of performing many missions together over Sarah's period as Chuck's handler. Chuck instinctively knew when Sarah would drop to one knee and start shooting from that position to give her better accuracy, so he shot over her head at the enemy coming out of the left hand side room before the instructor/fake enemy even had a chance to react. With only one left, and that particular instructor just about to reach his gun, Sarah went unorthodox. She had had it drilled into her to find someone for interrogation whenever possible, so her instincts told her to disarm the enemy first. This led to the unfortunate paintball gun being covered in paint as Sarah laid a burst into it, leaving Chuck to roll his eyes and shoot the actual enemy.

"Chuck, clear!" shouted Sarah, and Chuck complied, running into the first room (avoiding the 'body' of the instructor) and checking it for further enemies. He shouted "clear", and then did the same for the next room. When both were checked he backed out of the building, and Sarah followed without even needing a tap on the shoulder. With the door shut, Captain Mainwaring stopped the timer.

His eyes widened as he saw the time, and it was with some surprise still in his voice that he reported the time to the two recruits that had just exited the building and were walking hand-in-hand back to the 'command post'.

"28 seconds? How the ruddy hell did you do that?"

As the captain said that, almost every person present's jaw dropped, including Chuck and Sarah's. Casey was standing there with a proud smile on his face, as if he were a father that had just seen his son win the cup for his football team. His look said everything that his threats had tried to hide, but it quickly disappeared when Chuck shouted across "I knew you cared, Casey!"

"Don't get cocky, Bar-...Pugh. You still have to pass the final exam, so try not to piss me off or you won't be able to walk because my foot will be so far up your ass you'll have to drag me along with you."

"So you still can't find the heart to leave me, that's touching, it really is," said Chuck with a huge grin on his face.

"Oh, you little..."

--------

Chuck and Sarah spent the next few days refining their technique with the instructors, and actually ended up setting the recruit record for clearing a 3 enemy room at 25 seconds, which was about level with some of the best SAS teams. Sarah hadn't allowed Chuck to rest on his laurels with that achievement though; she made sure he worked just as hard, and sometimes even harder, for his reward that night. Somehow Chuck always came through though, which made Sarah wonder just why she hadn't a) given into her feelings before and b) hadn't thought of this incentive scheme.

Now it was the final exam for the SAS program. It was a simulated hostage rescue that would put together everything the recruits had learned into one large mission. Because they had been given rudimentary stealth training and combat training, this allowed the instructors to make things a lot more difficult for them. The final exam took place in the Highlands of Scotland, where there was a lot of dense forest and heathland. It just so happened that it had also rained the night before the exam was supposed to take place, so the recruits would be conducting this mission in the churned up mud.

The group had again been reduced, this time down to 6, so there would be two teams each conducting the same mission, but in different places. Each team would be led by an instructor; Captain Mainwaring led the team that Chuck and Sarah were on, along with the young former policeman Pike, and he was currently going over the planning for the mission, as Captain Mainwaring was naturally the mission commander.

"Right then, there is a hostage being held in one of these huts," said Captain Mainwaring, as he tapped the map that had marked on it the layout of a 'rebel' base. In reality the 'rebels' were a mix of soldiers not currently touring Iraq or Afghanistan and had volunteered for a spot of wargames, and instructors, who would also be assessing the capabilities of each recruit to decide whether or not to pass them from the course.

"What I think we should do, is have all four of us move in simultaneously, and have two covering the entrance to each hut while the other pair clears, and then move onto the next one if we don't find the hostage. Once we have the hostage we have a helicopter extraction waiting for us," continued Mainwaring.

"Sir? I have an idea," said Chuck.

"Go on then, Pugh, let's hear it," responded Mainwaring.

"Sir, if we go building by building, then won't the enemy just move the hostage? If he isn't in the first building we search, that is," elaborated Chuck.

"Good point, lad. What would you do to solve that?" asked Mainwaring.

"Sarah and I could covertly move to the next building, while you and Pike take cover at the side of the first. We have radios, so we can coordinate our attacks and stop them moving the hostage."

"That's not a bad idea, Pugh. We'll do that. How confident are you in your abilities to move covertly? The whole rescue could depend on you two not being discovered. That means keeping your hands to yourselves too," warned Mainwaring with a smile.

"I'm confident in Chuck's ability to move covertly, and I know I can, I did some work with FBI's HRT a couple of years back, and they trained me pretty good," said Sarah, conveniently missing out that her work with the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team was as a CIA liaison.

"Well, that would explain how well you did in the exercises. Why are you taking this training, if I may ask?" said Mainwaring.

"It's been a couple of years since I took part in anything like that; I needed to freshen up my skills," explained Sarah.

"Right then, so we know how we're going to rescue the hostage, but we're going to need an extraction plan to get rid of the rest of the guards. Lloyd, what do you think?" continued Mainwaring.

"Pike seems to be the best marksman in our group, so he can supply suppressing fire from the top of the hill that overlooks their camp. What rounds are we using?" asked Sarah.

"BB pellets; the 'enemy' are all wearing face masks, but they should fly fairly true," answered Mainwaring.

"Good, so if Pike suppresses the enemy once we've found the hostage, we can leave Chuck to cover him in the hut that we found him in, and warn him of any enemy approaches with our radios. Captain, you and I will act separately and take out the rest of the guards. How many did our recon say there were?"

"We sent over a UAV yesterday," responded Mainwaring, playing his role perfectly, as there was a script to follow, if the recruits asked the right questions. Mainwaring's other job was to try and lead the team down the wrong route, as he had done by suggesting the strategy of an 'all or nothing' approach. "There were 10 guards, and an unidentified number in each building. Do you think the odds of 10 against 2 are in our favour?"

"If they aren't expecting us, then we can pick them off piecemeal. You've surely done this before in the SAS, captain," said Sarah.

"I have, yes. Are we ready to go?"

"Yes sir!" answered the three recruits.

--------

The attack on the base began from just under half a mile away. Sarah snuck to the edge of the forest silently to perform a quick reconnaissance, in order to give her and Chuck the best chance of making it to the second hut undiscovered. Using the map she had with her, she marked on the patrol routes that she could see, and figured out a route that should mean that they only came into contact with one guard, which she could easily dispatch without raising the alarm. She noted that every ten minutes the guards checked in with the command post, so she now had a rough time limit to work with too. With the notes she had taken, she moved back to where the group was assembled to give a report.

"Yes, Lloyd. How did your recon go?" asked Mainwaring.

"From what I could see, you and Pike should be able to make it to the side of the first hut without encountering any patrols if you leave when I tell you to. Chuck and I will cross one patrol route, but if we time it right I can come up behind him and take him out just after he does his check-in, which occurs every 10 minutes."

"Are there any sentries watching the edge of the forest?"

"Not that I could see, sir. The route we take appears to be in a blind spot, and we have a clear run down to the campsite. Once you and Pike are in position, wait until you hear that Chuck and I are also ready, before moving in. We will probably expose ourselves once we move to open the doors, so we'll need to move quickly in and out. Pike should then make his way back up the hill and cover you and I as we take out the rest of the guards. Then we call for helicopter extraction."

"Sounds good, Lloyd. If this works I'm pretty sure you'll be passing. Any questions, Pugh? Pike?"

"Just one," said Chuck with a smile on his face. "Are you sure there isn't a car I could be waiting in, Sarah?"

Sarah laughed softly before leaning in and giving him a soft kiss, then whispering into his ear, "remember that reward?"-Chuck nodded vigorously-"Well if this goes well I have something extra special in mind for you."

"I have no more questions," said Chuck quickly. Mainwaring rolled his eyes and said nothing, only checking his weapon and motioning for Pike to do the same.

"Pike? Anything?" asked Mainwaring.

"No, sir," answered the young man timidly.

"Don't panic lad, this'll be easier to finish than one of my sister Dolly's cakes," said Mainwaring kindly. "Let's move, people."

Pike and Mainwaring were first to break through the forest's cover, moving quickly but stealthily down the hill to the first hut, while Sarah and Chuck covered them. Once they had reached the hut wall, and without alerting any guards, they signalled for Chuck and Sarah to follow them.

"Remember, follow my lead and you'll do fine," said Sarah encouragingly, before she sprang quickly out of the forest and down the hill. True to Sarah's assessment, there were no sentries in sight and the two lovers reached the wall of the first hut in a matter of seconds. She checked her watch, and held three fingers up for Chuck to get an idea of when they would be moving again.

When the last finger curled into her fist, she swept round the corner of the hut and with panther-like grace, she moved behind the guard patrolling the gap between and behind the two huts. The guard was blissfully unaware of Sarah until she had him in a sleeper-hold, which restricted his vocal chords and stopped him from calling out a warning. Once the guard was unconscious, Sarah lowered him to the ground and moved back to the hut as quickly as possible, then motioned for Chuck to follow her.

They moved stealthily into the gap between the two huts; not taking any chances even with the only guard that Sarah had seen currently lying unconscious in the alley created by the two huts, where Sarah had dragged him to avoid suspicion. Once Chuck was waiting at the corner, prepared to fling open the unlatched door to the hut and allow Sarah entry, Sarah keyed her radio to Mainwaring's frequency.

"In position," she quietly whispered. "Move in."

With that, Chuck flung open the door, as did Captain Mainwaring at the other hut door, and Sarah moved in, an action mirrored by Pike. Sarah took in her surroundings, and with her radio switched to Chuck's frequency, she muttered "four" to him, giving him some idea of what to expect when he came in. The guards were unsuspecting, and Sarah dropped two quickly before they had time to find their weapons.

The third had his weapon pointed at Sarah, but Chuck, by some strange form of intuition, sensed the 'danger' to his beloved and moved into the room, firing as he went, and the third enemy was also dispatched. The single remaining enemy quickly gave himself up, but Sarah considered the mission and moved to fire, but she made the mistake of looking at Chuck before she did it, and noticed his horrified look. That was when she knew what he must have felt when he saw her shoot Mauser on Christmas Eve, so she switched her grip on the gun and swatted the guard around the temple with the butt of it, knocking him out for at least half an hour.

With all of the guards dead, Chuck moved into what seemed to be a prisoner containment area, and he saw an injured man lying on one of the beds. After giving him a quick once-over for weapons, Chuck picked him up and carried the man into the main room.

"Sarah, I think we have the hostage," he said, and Sarah nodded in agreement. Chuck used his radio for the first time, saying to Mainwaring "hostage secure, proceed to Phase 2."

Once Mainwaring answered that they had cleared their hut, Sarah left the building and moved to meet with Mainwaring in the alley, while Pike moved back to the higher ground, both to suppress the enemy and give movement reports. It didn't seem as though the rest of the base had been alerted by the occasional pop of the BB weapons, so Sarah withdrew her map with the patrol routes marked on it once more. She assigned the nine remaining routes to both herself and Captain Mainwaring, and then switched her radio to Pike's frequency.

"Lloyd, you have one sentry moving towards you, should be passing the alley in approximately 5 seconds," Pike warned.

Sure enough, the sentry passed, and Sarah slipped out to follow him. She aimed and fired her BB gun at the target's back, grouping five shots in areas that were they live ammunition, would have pierced both lungs and done severe spinal damage before penetrating the heart.

"Target down," she whispered, before spotting movement to her left. Her weapon came up as she whirled round, and the next guard was down in a flash. These shots alerted the rest of the camp, who came running in Sarah's direction, but she slipped effortlessly back into the shadows.

Mainwaring had taken down another two guards, which left five. Three were moving in on Sarah's position, but he couldn't see the other two. His question was answered when he heard Pike's voice through his radio.

"Pugh, two are heading for your building. Get ready. Captain, can you cover him?"

"On my way," answered Mainwaring. He moved to the corner of the building he was hiding behind, and saw the two troops moving towards the door of Chuck's building. They were obviously about to use the clearing tactics trained into the recruits over the past week. When they moved into the building, Mainwaring moved across the street and took cover to the side of the door. He wondered why he couldn't hear any gunshots, but then his questions were answered as a series of rapid pops came from inside, followed by Chuck calmly striding out. He looked surprised at seeing the captain, but Chuck recovered quickly.

"What happened in there, Pugh?" asked the captain in amazement.

"I knew I couldn't take on two of them if they were fully trained, so I got a bit creative," Chuck admitted.

"Which means what, exactly?"

"I pretended to be surprised, and then surrendered. While the enemy were distracted, the hostage used the weapon I had given him from the 'dead' enemies to take out the hostiles. You can ask him if you don't believe me, it was all thought through."

"No, no, I believe you. Sounds exactly like the kind of crazy stunt you'd pull."

"Three down," said Sarah's voice through the radio.

"That's all of them," confirmed Pike. "Shall we call for extraction?"

"No need, mission accomplished," said Mainwaring. "Well done chaps."

"Awesome," said Chuck, and the same word came from Sarah, when she heard Mainwaring mention that. She almost skipped through the groaning pile of barely conscious instructors and soldiers.

When she met up with Chuck she pulled him down for a long hard kiss.

"Well, that was easier than I was expecting," said Chuck when they came up for air.

--------

Things didn't go quite so well for the other team. They had followed Casey's deliberately bad advice, and it had ended up with the hostage getting shot before they could get to him, as they picked the wrong hut to start with. Those three were given an automatic fail, but Chuck, Sarah and Pike all passed and moved into the espionage section of the training course. Casey at least tried to act surprised when he heard about Team Bartowski's raid on the camp being a success, but he couldn't keep it up and actually congratulated Chuck and Sarah on a job well done. This, as may be expected, almost caused Chuck to pass out from shock.

And after Sarah's extra reward for that day's work, Chuck did indeed pass out, though not from shock.

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**A/N: I think I should set another challenge, considering you managed to pass this one too, and pretty quickly I must say. How about 115 reviews? *evil laugh***

**On another note, I've been considering doing a one-shot based around Sarah's incentive scheme. Needless to say, it will probably end up M-rated barring a small miracle and creative editing, but I just thought I'd throw that out there; see if there was any interest. So, is there any interest?**

**Just one more thing. There are some references to a pretty old British comedy in here. I'd be interested to see if anybody caught them. **

**Press the green button, you know you want to, nay, you should press the green button. Doooo iiittt.**


	9. Chuck Vs The Shower

**A/N: First off, apologies for the long wait. There's been a lot of real life stuff going on what with getting A level results, sorting out University places, sorting out accommodation. It's been hectic to say the least. Even with that, I also haven't had any motivation to write much, hence the shortness of this chapter. I'm not making any promises on when the next chapter will be out as I'm still struggling for motivation, but with any luck it'll be before next week. Thanks to Zerectica for the beta. Read her stuff, seriously. It's like über-mega-fantabulously-super-insert superlative here-awesome. Especially Lost in the Darkness, probably the best dark fluff piece I've ever read. Bug her for the sequel too, maybe we'll get it faster :D. Having read the first 20,000 or so words due to a desperate attempt to fix it when her computer decided to go all Fulcrum on her, it may be even better than Lost in the Darkness v1.0. **

**Edited: Message from Z; bug her about the Deaf Sarah fic that she's writing. Bug her about both if you have to, just make sure we get updates from her**

**Again, sorry for the wait, here it is:**

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Now that Chuck had completed what was, in his opinion, the most challenging part of his training, he had a burning question to ask Sarah.

"Does the incentive offer still stand?" he asked, giving Sarah a dose of the Bartowski Eyebrow Dance for good measure.

"Depends on how well you do," said Sarah, with a teasing lilt to her voice, but she turned more serious when she saw Chuck's worried expression. "Hey, you'll do fine. Just remember that the hard part is over. You can do this; you've jumped off a building and stared down a bunch of mercenaries all in two days. This'll be easy. You were born to be a spy, Chuck, even if you didn't realise it."

And just like that, Chuck's worries seemed to disappear. Sarah always seemed to know what to say to reassure him. She had told him repeatedly that he wasn't _totally_ out of his depth in the world of espionage, although Chuck still wasn't totally convinced on that one, but no matter what, she gave him the confidence to keep trying anyway.

Of course, his various feats of 'heroism' were made much easier when it was Sarah he was trying to save. He'd have to get through this training if only for that reason; he didn't want to put Sarah at unnecessary risk because he wasn't good enough to fend for himself outside of the car. He would never be able to forgive himself if he caused Sarah or the baby to come to harm.

"And you think you're no good with words..." began Chuck teasingly.

"I could only do that with you," insisted Sarah. "Nobody else has ever made me want to open myself up so much emotionally. Not even Bryce. Not even my Dad, only you. Even if I were blind or deaf I'd have faith in you to protect me emotionally. Let me deal with the physical stuff, you can deal with the emotions. We're two sides of the same coin. I'm always staying with you, if you'll have me, that is."

"Why would you think that I wouldn't?" asked Chuck, slightly confused. "I can't live without you."

_He...can't...live...without me?_ Thought Sarah in shock. "Do you really mean that?" she asked in a choked voice.

"Of course I do," said Chuck defiantly. "You are the only thing I have in my life at the moment that gives me something to fight for. And without that, what's the point?"

"Oh, Chuck," she whispered, and she didn't even try to stop herself as she launched her body at Chuck's. Chuck was surprised by this latest development, but he couldn't say that it was a particularly _bad_ development. The two of them ended up backing up quickly through the room as Chuck lost his balance and Sarah kept pushing herself into him, until the back of Chuck's legs connected with the bed and they toppled over; still grappling with one another.

As they hit the bed, Chuck had all of the breath knocked out of his body by the goddess that ended up lying atop him. This, unfortunately for both parties, meant that he had to break the prolonged kiss. As he came up, gasping for air, it left him once again as Sarah latched onto his neck and began kissing him madly, which drove anything remotely approaching coherent thought rapidly from Chuck's mind.

He managed to scrape together enough thought to say something when Sarah stopped her attention to his neck to essentially tear his shirt off him. Chuck looked mournfully at the buttons that were strewn across the bedroom, but his attention was rapidly drawn back to Sarah as she shed her own shirt (rather more carefully, it has to be said) and a very superficial advantage of pregnancy was literally right in front of his ever widening eyes.

"Guh..." was the only sound he could force his mouth to make. He gulped loudly and tried again. "God, you're so beautiful. And that doesn't even come close to describing you. You're...you're...omniprettiful!"

"Omniprettiful?" said Sarah in amusement. "And just what does that mean?"

"I'll never tell!" said Chuck with confidence that he was quite sure he wasn't feeling when he saw the predatory glint in Sarah's eyes. She leaned over him as Chuck lay back on the bed, and Chuck fought to keep his eyes pointed towards the ceiling.

_Come on, Bartowski. Be respectful at least, future wife or not she's not an object,_ chimed in Chuck's Casey conscience. Sarah noticed Chuck's efforts to maintain some level of decorum, which was admirable considering their various stages of undress. Sarah then made his task even more difficult by reaching behind her back and releasing the clasp of her bra. As the material fell away, Chuck's eyes snapped downwards. Sarah noticed that with amusement, and decided to press home her significant advantage.

"Are you sure? Because I have ways of making you talk, Mr. Bartowski."

"I'll...never...talk," choked out Chuck with difficulty, as Sarah chose that exact moment to grind her hips against his.

"Really? Well I guess there's no point in me continuing this then," said Sarah teasingly. She then made Chuck's day get off to an incredibly frustrating start as she climbed off him and waltzed off to the shower, not bothering to put her shirt back on.

"Aww, come on!" Chuck shouted after her. "That's just cruel," he muttered to himself.

He stood up and tried the door to the bathroom. He figured that once he was through the door he would have an opportunity to finish what Sarah had somewhat forcibly started. Sarah had locked it however. _Hmm, time for Plan B then_, thought Chuck. Chuck hadn't really expected Plan A to be a rousing success; it was like expecting a Fulcrum agent to crack under interrogation by using the comfy chair.

_Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,_ thought Chuck with a small chuckle. He wondered if Sarah's ignorance of popular culture extended to the gods of comedy that were Monty Python. He'd have to test that out at some point, possibly by organising a philosopher's football match and seeing if it garnered any reaction. It was at times like these Chuck often cursed his inability to focus on the task in hand.

He turned his attention back to trying to get through the door to Paradise. Plan B was quite clearly begging for mercy from Sarah, or possibly bargaining with the temptress of his dreams. Of course, the puppy eyes weren't going to work through the door, so he would have to try another method.

"Sarah, please let me in?" he tried as an opening shot.

"Nuh-uh," was the response, slightly muffled by the door. Chuck then heard the shower start running, which led to some very unhelpful thoughts (at this particular time) about Sarah's likely state of undress.

"Why not?" he whined.

Sarah didn't really have a good answer for that one. She really didn't know why she had broken off the happenings in the bedroom. Okay, she wanted to tease Chuck, but now her stubbornness was costing her valuable shower time with her husband-to-be. That just wouldn't do. Still, she couldn't let him think he'd won; it would damage the valuable training every woman puts a man through at some stage in the relationship. Sarah had heard it compared to training a dog when she had spent time with Ellie's (married) doctor friends; it's all well and good trying to train them, but as soon as you relent even a little bit, they'll jump through the gap and destroy all of your hard work.

_Not gonna happen_, thought Sarah defensively. _I happen to like a Chuck that I've trained to put the toilet seat down._

"What are you going to do to make it worth my while?" she called through the door.

Chuck racked his brains for something, _anything_, that might make Sarah open the door to what was now being considered as the Promised Land for Chuck. Then it hit him; he didn't need anything. Sarah just had to _think_ he had something that she would open the door for. In her current state, only one thing would achieve that.

"Well...I do have a tub of chocolate ice-cream out here, and I was thinking...that...we..." he trailed off as Sarah's majestic form emerged from the bathroom with all the ferocity of a Scotsman attacking his first (of many) pints. Her ice-cream induced ferocity faded as it became clear that Chuck was not, in fact, in possession of that dairy-based miracle food she so craved. One thing she did notice was the effect her lack of clothing was having on Chuck's anatomy.

"I guess somebody's happy to see me at least," she teased. Chuck blushed furiously but Sarah just laughed and took his hand, pulling him into the bathroom, which was by now more resembling a sauna. "Come on, Chuck. We have hand to hand combat training tomorrow. I think you could use some _close_ tuition on the wrestling side of it."

Sarah lead Chuck into the bathroom, and the steam curling around her beautiful form made her look ethereal, and if Chuck didn't already view her as a goddess, Sarah was trying her damndest to change that impression. She needn't have bothered; she could render Chuck speechless with the right look, a casual flick of the hair or even a simple kiss. Anything more could probably be considered torture by most societies.

It was all Chuck could do to stop himself from launching himself at her; he still had the presence of mind to know that jumping someone in the bathroom is probably one of the largest causes of concussion. Of course, not even a nuclear explosion would have stopped the release of passion that took place as they entered the shower. Chuck quickly latched onto the spot he had discovered on Sarah's neck that made her shout out, and suddenly Sarah was glad for the thick walls that were present in this old Edwardian style Town-house.

They didn't emerge from that room for several hours. Apparently Chuck was becoming _very_ proficient at wrestling his fiancé.

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**A/N: No review challenge this time, mostly because of the time it took me to write this and how short it is. Still, if you want to leave a review, there's a little green button just below this that really wants to be pushed. Seriously, it was telling me all about it earlier.**


	10. Chuck vs The Lethal Weapon

**A/N: Another long delay I know, but it's been a hectic week. Thanks to all the people who have left reviews so far (If you've left more than one, then add a thank you for each one). Thanks to verkisto for the beta.**

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"Do I really have to learn how to shoot?" whined Chuck. "I did perfectly well without having the faintest idea when I was just an asset."

Sarah could see that it was tearing Chuck up that he was, essentially, going to be learning how to kill someone more efficiently, but he couldn't pass the training without learning how to handle a weapon effectively.

"Chuck, if you can shoot accurately, it'll be safer for all of us," she said with absolute conviction.

"Not for the guy I shoot," grumbled Chuck.

"Even for him," said Sarah, willing Chuck to understand. "This way, you can be accurate, and if you aim for the arm, you can be sure you'll hit the arm rather than your aim being off and hitting him in the chest."

Chuck's eyes lit up in understanding. Sarah's logic, no matter how roundabout, actually made some sense. If he knew where the bullet would end up, it would be safer for everyone concerned, and he couldn't forgive himself if an incident like the Embassy happened again and this time endangered Sarah, instead of helping her by pure dumb luck. Luck had to run out sometime, skill stayed with you if you kept working at it.

"Are you sure that's what this is all about," Chuck teased. "Or do you just want someone to be able to keep up with you once in a while?"

"The day someone keeps up with me is the day I retire," responded Sarah with a laugh.

"So, by that logic, I should never be able to sneak up on you?" asked Chuck.

"Nope, not now, not ever," said Sarah, folding her arms as though she were a petulant child.

"I sense a wager..." began Chuck teasingly.

"I'm listening," said Sarah, her interest piqued.

"Wow, you're serious..."said Chuck, astonished. "Okay, if I manage to sneak up on you at any point, then I get to...I get to..." he trailed off lamely, trying to think of an appropriate prize for achieving the impossible.

"Don't bother coming up with anything, you won't win. But I think I should get something out of this," retorted Sarah.

"And what would that be?" asked Chuck.

"If you don't sneak up on me successfully within a month, then you have to make me breakfast from now until the baby is born."

"And if I do manage to sneak up on you?"

"That's for you to decide, but I count you succeeding as managing to kiss me on the neck without me noticing you beforehand."

"Easy," said Chuck confidently. "I think I know what I get if I win."

"Do enlighten me," said Sarah dryly.

"You have to eat the breakfasts I make for the rest of our lives," he said, putting himself out there once again for Sarah.

Sarah's jaw dropped. _Every time_, she thought in amazement_, every time I think he can't surprise me any more than he already has, he goes and does something like this. Maybe I should let him win? No, I'm too competitive for that, he's going to have to earn my breakfasts. Yeah, that'll teach him. And no training required. Perfect, another thing off the Chuck training list._

"Chuck..."she stammered, her eyes glistening. "That's...that's...well, it's you, isn't it?" she finished, laughing.

Chuck got a wide smile on his face at Sarah's reaction. "Well, I guess I like to surprise you. Shall we actually go to the firing range or just stay in bed?" he joked.

"Well..."began Sarah, feigning indecision. "I guess we _should_ probably go. You're not going to learn how to be accurate here, are you?"

"No...probably not," conceded Chuck as he stood up from the bed, taking Sarah with him in his arms.

"Chuck! Put me down!" she shouted, laughing.

"That SAS training got me all into shape, you wouldn't want that to go to waste now, would you?" said Chuck teasingly.

"Well, I think you probably should put me down anyway," argued Sarah. "You might struggle to fire a weapon with me taking up all of your arm space."

Chuck finally relented and put Sarah back down on solid carpet, yet Sarah strangely found herself missing the warmth and security she found in Chuck's arms.

_Come on Walker, you're stronger than this,_ she silently berated herself, _he's only a guy. Admittedly, a perfect, cute, funny, perfect, charming, sweet, lovable, perfect..._

Sarah shook her head to clear it from the Chuck-love fest. It was usually a good thing, but it wasn't particularly desirable when she wasn't in a position to do anything about it.

_I guess I'll have to keep him busy tonight then,_ thought Sarah wistfully.

----------

It was only a short walk to the firing range that was present at the Hereford base, and Chuck and Sarah walked there hand-in-hand, as they did everywhere they went, much to the displeasure of Casey, who had stayed on to take control of some of the espionage training that would be going on.

Quite a lot of the young men on base, who had been rather hopeful upon seeing Sarah out for the first time, and without Chuck, had felt a severe sense of disappointment on seeing she and Chuck holding hands as they walked to training, but also severe envy of the curly haired nerd who was batting way above his average.

They got to the red-brick building that housed what was once a swimming pool, but had been converted to a separate firing range for recruits. In one room, there was a speed test, in which the recruits used a semiautomatic rifle to attempt to knock down ten targets with ten rounds in the fastest time that they could.

In the other was a more 'typical' firing range, with booths set up to give a stable firing platform for rifles, and to help separate the range from the recruits, in order to improve the all-important 'Health and Safety' of the base. Quite why a **military** base needed a Health and Safety risk assessment was beyond Chuck, but apparently 'that was England', according to the soldiers that he had spoken to in the various pubs and bars dotted around the base and surrounding area.

The two fiancées walked into the firing range, and Chuck's heart sank.

"Oh, hell no," he muttered, but not quietly enough.

"What's the matter, Bar- Pugh? Afraid I'll remember you still owe me a toe?" said Casey.

"How many times do I have to apologise for that?" asked Chuck.

Without warning, Casey fired his pistol directly into the floor ahead of Chuck, and just as suddenly, Casey found himself staring down the barrel of Sarah's weapon.

_Where in the hell did she get that from? _Wondered Chuck,_ I thought I found all the hiding places._

"Tut tut, Lloyd. Recruits can't carry guns. You know that," reprimanded Casey.

"Sorry Casey," said Sarah sheepishly. "Old habits die hard."

"Give me the gun, Lloyd," said Casey, aiming his own at her.

"Guys, calm down!" shouted Chuck. "Aren't you here to teach, Casey? Rather than shooting your pupils, I mean."

_I can kick his ass anyway,_ thought Sarah as she flicked the safety on her pistol on and handed it to Casey. _With or without a gun, and not even Chuck's going to find where I've hidden my knives._

_I wonder where she hides her knives, _thought Chuck, in a not-too-rare display of synchronicity with his fiancé. _I must find them!_

"Okay. Pugh, nice to see you've still got your lady fighting your corner, but the shins of the world will sleep easier once you have a vague idea what you're doing with a gun," said Casey, strolling over to a rack that contained weapons of all sizes, ranging from assault rifles, to shotguns, and to pistols. Selecting what he viewed as the 'safest' choice of weaponry, Casey stepped back from the rack and once more stood before Chuck.

"This is going to be your friend from now until you pass this course. And you will pass. I'll have you shooting the sovereign off a chav at fifty yards by the time we're done here, don't worry about that."

"Err, Casey?" questioned Chuck. "Just how much time have you spent in England?"

"None of your business, Pugh. Why do you ask?" answered Casey.

"Well, I only understood roughly half of what you just said."

"It's the training, you pick up the local dialect quickly," said Casey by way of explanation.

"Sarah hasn't," Chuck pointed out.

"That's because she's spent more time digging her nails into your back than amongst the lovely inhabitants of this fine town," Casey said, the last part in a _very_ sarcastic tone. "Now, are you going to take the pistol?"

Chuck reached out tentatively for the, thankfully, unloaded pistol, and felt slightly uncomfortable at the weight of the metal instrument of death in his hands. _This is not something I want to be doing often,_ thought Chuck. _Can't I just wait in the car? God, I wish I could wait in the car._

"Don't puke, Pugh," laughed Casey, slapping Chuck on the back and directing him to the end of the firing range. "You should be fine working on your own, Lloyd, and God knows Pugh is going to need the teaching more than you."

Sarah gave a noncommittal shrug, but instead of stepping over to the rack that contained all of the standard issue weapons, she turned to Casey.

"Uh, Casey? Can I have my pistol back?" she asked, almost timidly. _What the hell has happened to you, Walker? What happened to the stone cold agent that could kill someone faster than fix her hair? Oh, right, Chuck happened. And I wouldn't have it any other way._

Casey once again removed Sarah's pistol from the waistband of his trousers, and popping the magazine, he checked the number of rounds remaining. Satisfied, he passed the pistol back to Sarah, and directed her to the booth next to where Chuck was standing, still looking very uncomfortable holding his weapon.

"I'm gonna assume you don't have any spare clips on you, so there's a box of round and some empty clips at the far left. We're not leaving here until both of you get at least a 75 out of 90 with your nine round clip," said Casey, pointing at the ammunition reserves for Sarah's benefit, and then striding to stand next to Chuck.

"Sarah, are you sure you should be firing that? What about the baby?" asked Chuck, concerned for his unborn child.

"Way ahead of you, honey," answered Sarah, who was already screwing a suppressor onto the barrel of her pistol. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Casey, who was looking impatient to begin the lesson.

"Let me see what I'm working with here. Pugh, take a couple of shots at the target, and try not to shoot yourself in the process," said Casey, beginning his instruction of Chuck, and handing Chuck a single magazine, that Chuck easily managed to load. Casey breathed a small sigh of relief; it would have been testing on his calm centre to have to teach the reluctant pupil even the most basic side of weapons use.

Chuck, rather unsteadily, took up a rough approximation of what he believed to be a firing stance, and pointed the pistol downrange. The target, a paper sheet set up ten metres away, was all that Chuck allowed himself to focus on. He tried to control his breathing and rapidly spiralling heart rate, but he just couldn't get out of his head the fact that this would be the first time he had _intentionally_ fired a weapon not composed entirely of pixels.

Finally, feeling like he had at least a small measure of control, Chuck felt ready to take his first shot. He tried to focus on the fact that it was only a paper target, not a living, breathing human, but it was still with some trepidation that he fired off his first shot. It went directly into the inner circle of the target, but unfortunately it was Sarah's target he hit. Waiting for the inevitable barrage of snarky comments that would be heading his way, he bowed his head, so he wasn't surprised by Casey's next comment.

"Not bad for a first try, Pugh, but the target you're aiming for is directly in front of you, not off to the side."

"Thank you for that wonderful insight, Casey," said Chuck sarcastically to his former handler and forever nemesis. "Anything _helpful_ you'd like to add? I would rather like to pass this eventually."

"Squeeze the trigger, don't pull it," suggested Casey. "That was what caused your shot to fly off to the right. And for God's sake, look where you're aiming, don't try to shoot with your eyes squeezed shut."

Chuck at least had the good grace to look sheepish about the last part, but he also had a look of greater determination as he once again stepped up to the firing booth. Sarah had one last piece of helpfulness she wanted to dispense to him.

"You get over 60 from a single mag and I plan to make Casey incredibly uncomfortable," she whispered to him seductively.

"What do you mean by 60?" Chuck whispered back.

"Do you see the rings on the target? Each ring has a different score, with 10 on the bull and working out to 1 on the outside ring," Sarah explained patiently.

"Let's do this," said Chuck with a confidence he wasn't sure he was feeling. Taking on board Casey's advice, he closed both hands around the pistol once more, squinting one eye to better sight on the target. Steadying his feet so he didn't look like a fool when the recoil caught him off balance, and making sure to relax his arms so as to reduce the stress on the bones in his lower arm, he felt ready to take his second and hopefully much more accurate shot.

He slowly applied pressure to the trigger, mindful to keep it even to avoid pulling the barrel to the right as with the previous shot. As he applied more pressure, he felt the shock of the shot, accompanied with the loud bang synonymous with a bullet being ejected from its cartridge. Casey lowered his eye to the small telescope mounted on the side of the booth to check the target closely.

"Five," he announced. "Not bad for a newbie. It's still pulling to the right slightly, but I don't know if that's the sight or you, so fire off the rest of the magazine and we'll see if an adjustment needs to be made."

A few minutes later, after Chuck had fired the remaining seven shots in the magazine, Casey pressed a button that brought the, by now, perforated target towards the end of the range. It stopped in front of the trainee and the instructor. The eight holes on the sheet were all roughly grouped around the original shot that had hit the target, with a few sixes and fours due to the spread that came from a lack of practice.

"This should be a simple enough problem to fix," said Casey. "Give me the pistol."

Chuck handed Casey the weapon quickly; he was feeling slightly more comfortable with the pistol in his hands, but that didn't mean he wanted to spend more time than was necessary holding it. Taking the pistol, Casey fiddled with the sight on the end, aligning it more to the left than it originally was.

Meanwhile, Sarah had also pressed the button to bring her second target up to the booth, and she was inspecting it with a small measure of pride. With good reason too, as every shot appeared to have passed through a now very ragged hole directly in the centre of the sheet.

"You've always got to show off, haven't you?" said Chuck, laughing slightly. Sarah turned and playfully stuck her tongue out at him, a gesture Chuck reciprocated.

"Nice to see you two have progressed past the age of five. Grab another few mags, Pugh, you're gonna be here for a while yet. Lloyd, you can go. If you can tear yourself away from your boy-toy, that is," Casey said with his usual level of tact.

"No, I think I'll stay here and watch. _Somebody_ has to encourage him once in a while," answered Sarah.

"Why am I not surprised?" Casey muttered to himself.

----------

With the newly realigned sights, Chuck was doing better, certainly. He had even managed to land one shot in the 'ten' ring, which Casey insisted must have been a fluke. Overall, he thought he was doing rather well, and he had been averaging roughly seventy for the past five magazines. This had led to the completion of Sarah's promise to make Casey uncomfortable, which turned out to be a rather heavy make-out session.

That usually meant Chuck needed to take a couple of minutes to be able to concentrate on the task at hand, namely getting above seventy-five so that he could get Sarah home and unleash some of the passion she repeatedly brought to the surface only to leave it there, always growing. What was worse is that Chuck was almost certain she was doing it on purpose, but it made him even more determined to improve that slight amount that was necessary.

As it happened, with Casey's continued hints, Chuck was getting better at grouping his shots, and he was also edging ever closer to that magic 75 mark. From this particular magazine, he had fired eight of the nine shots, and was on a score of 66. That meant that if he could somehow get a nine or ten then he could get home and release his urgent passion that he was barely, _barely_, keeping under control as it was.

He drove those thoughts from his mind and focused on the paper sheet in front of him. He could see the perforations from his earlier shots; all grouped just to the right and below the 'ten' circle. He figured now was as good a time as any to try and correct his aim so, compensating for the slight misalignment between where he aimed and where the shot ended up, he aimed slightly above and to the left of the 'ten' ring.

As Casey had taught him, Chuck slowed his breathing as much as possible. _In...hold...hold...hold...out_, he repeated internally, the silent mantra his attempt to maintain focus. He felt his heart rate slow and, now feeling calm enough, he began to depress the trigger for hopefully the final time. As the release of pressure came with the telltale noise, he lowered the pistol, and his heart rate escalated again. He didn't know why he was this bothered about a simple test that had no bearing other than when he'd get to have sex next. Actually, no, he did know why. That was the reason. Casey lowered his eye to the small telescope once more, and came up with a grin somewhere between pride and disappointment.

"As much as I'd like to keep you here, you managed to get that shot on the nine/ten boundary, which gives you a score of 76. I'm not sure how you managed it, Pugh, but you can go. Try to keep your clothes on until you're actually inside the house; nobody wants to see you naked."

Sarah gave a small, obviously fake, cough, and when Casey turned to look at her, she gave him a pointed glance that said, quite clearly, _I want to_. Casey turned away in disgust; it was bad enough they had to keep kissing while he was trying to teach, but deliberately scarring him with _that_ image? He was sure there had to be an international treaty against torture that cruel and unusual.

"What the hell, Lloyd? Just go, please," he said, almost begging Sarah to leave with her former asset/future husband.

_I really hope they make it back fully clothed,_ thought Casey; _I left my eye-gouging spoon back at Quantico._

----------

**A/N: Another long wait, I know, and for that I apologise, but it's been another hectic week. I was going to include a lot more of the training side of things, but I'd prefer to get right onto the main arc of the story, so there'll be one more chapter centring around training, and then it'll be on with the story. Next chapter comes at 135 reviews :P and a slight spoiler, everyone's favourite seduction teacher, Roan Montgomery, gets a chance to see how many of the prongs of his famous assault Chuck has remembered. And maybe he gets to train Casey, just for kicks. I know I'd like to see that.**

**Green button, just below, it needs pressing. That is its only purpose in life; you wouldn't want to make the poor button redundant, would you? **


	11. Chuck Vs The Seduction

**A/N: The bulk of this chapter is a flashback, but it includes a scene that I've wanted to write for a while. I'm sure you'll all recognise it :P**

**Thanks to SLWF (No way I'm typing that all out lol) for the beta. It's sobering to be called on grammar by somebody younger than you, but she is a 'genius' :P**

**Sorry for the delay, again. I actually finished this chapter at my grandparents' house, where I'm staying for tonight before I head up to Chester tomorrow. I'm not sure about how quickly the updates will be from then on, but who knows? I might not have much in the way of lectures, ergo time to kill, which hopefully means writing.**

--------

"Excuse me ma'am, is this seat taken?" said Chuck confidently, attempting to 'work the room', as he approached the brunette sitting alone at a table in the Moka Bar, in central Hereford.

"No, go ahead," she answered.

Chuck took the offered seat, and extended his hand to the woman sitting opposite him.

"Charles Carmichael," said Chuck, introducing himself. "And who might you be?"

"Be confident, Charles. _Be_ Carmichael, not Pugh," came Roan Montgomery's voice through the earpiece that Chuck was wearing to allow Roan to offer advice. On the spot seduction tuition, as it were.

"Sabrina Tabor, and I'm taken," answered the woman, catching onto Chuck's supposed purpose almost straight away. As she walked away from the table, Chuck cringed, before speaking subtly into the microphone mounted in his watch.

"I think that went well," he said sarcastically.

"Calm down, Charles. That was just the first round. Don't get discouraged," advised Roan.

"The first round? She's clearly not interested," protested Chuck. "I'd prefer not to be seen as a stalker by the time the night is out."

"Charles, the first rule of seduction is to learn the fine line separating persistence from harassment," said Roan. "Where is that delightful young lady now?"

"First of all, eww, just...eww. You're old enough to be her father. And secondly, she's at the bar," answered Chuck.

"Time for round two then," said Roan. "Besides, nothing wrong with an age gap; I've seduced plenty of women younger than my daughter."

"Says more about you than the merits of a wide age gap, Roan," said Chuck, a vague note of disgust entering his voice. Nonetheless, he got up from his seat and approached the bar, where Casey was playing bartender again (and looking none-too-pleased about his reversion to this familiar cover role).

"Barkeep, a refill for the lady?" he said, calling on some confidence he wasn't sure that he even possessed.

"How many times? I'm taken," said Sabrina irritably.

"Miss, is this man bothering you?" said a tall man, built much like a rugby forward. Chuck looked up and paled at the sight of the 6'6", 18 stone man standing before him.

"No, I can handle him by myself. Thank you for the offer though," said Sabrina kindly.

Chuck was too caught up in being eternally grateful to Sabrina for her intervention to notice the 'mark' for tonight was leaving again.

"You could've taken him," said Sarah encouragingly.

"Remind me why my _fiancé_ is watching my seduction attempts?" said Chuck with a vague wave. "Besides adding even more pressure to me, I mean."

"Because, honey," said Sarah sweetly. "This way I know whether or not to put you on the couch."

"Okay, Charles," said Roan, interrupting the little moment that Chuck and Sarah had somehow managed to create despite the fact she was in a van in the car park. Chuck hadn't been too impressed with this temporary separation, until Casey pointed out that it wasn't that good an idea to have one's fiancée watching one trying to seduce another woman. He turned his attention back to Roan's voice, which was coming through his earpiece. "Looks like we'll have to find another mark. See anybody that interests you?"

_How in the hell am I meant to answer that question? _Chuck asked himself.

"Yes, Chuck, see anybody interesting?" said Sarah, all the earlier sweetness gone from her voice.

"Sarah, honey, nobody compares to you," protested Chuck. "Can't we call it a night and try another bar tomorrow?"

"Sorry, Pugh, but Montgomery's heading back to his gin soaked condo tomorrow. Besides, you've had a week of teaching; surely some of it has sunk in by now?" said Casey.

"Well, call me old fashioned, but I don't particularly like having to seduce someone when, and I can't believe I have to repeat it, I'm _engaged_. Isn't there another option?" said Chuck, almost pleading.

"Suck it up, Pugh. Grovel to Lloyd later, we have work to do," answered Casey, showing his usual disregard for Chuck's 'feelings'. "How about her, over there?" he continued, pointing out a short blonde who was looking bored in a corner table and giving Chuck a nudge in her direction.

"I hate you, Casey," said Chuck before putting on his 'Carmichael' face and heading over to talk to the blonde woman.

---------

**1 Week Earlier**

"_Him? Really?" Chuck asked in amazement when he found out who would be teaching him the seduction aspect of his training._

"_Montgomery's the best at what, or should I say who, he does," said Casey sharply. "The Brits are trying to bring up their standards to match us, so I guess they're bringing in the best trainers."_

"_Well that explains Roan, but what are you doing here, Casey?"said Sarah before she clamped her mouth shut in surprise. __**Did I just start baiting Casey? **__She asked herself. __**I'm spending way too much time around Chuck.**_

"_You too, Lloyd? I would've expected that from Pugh, but __**you**__? And Pugh, your reaction times are slipping if your little girlfriend can get a snarky comment in before you," finished Casey, shaking his head in mock sadness. _

"_Oh be quiet, Casey," said Sarah flippantly, latching back onto Chuck as he wrapped an arm around her protectively._

_Casey had been taking his role as a mentor to his two former team members seriously to say the least. Naturally, Chuck had been more of a focus for the Major's advice, as Casey knew that Sarah could probably pass the exams without any teaching and only a small amount of practice, such was her skill. Chuck, on the other hand, needed a lot of work done on his basic spy craft; his last two attempts at handling a firearm had left a lot to be desired, but Casey was confident now that Chuck's proficiency was somewhere near being enough to pass the exam. He had even had a few thoughts previously hoping that Chuck didn't have to kill too often; he wasn't your average spy, and nobody knows how someone will react to taking a life._

_It was something Casey would like to avoid for someone he had come to view as a friend, much as he hated to admit it. It was a strange feeling for the hardened NSA veteran, and more often than not he found himself berating himself for letting the 'idiot' get under his skin like he had. He always felt better when he looked at how far Sarah had gone; however, as he knew that the odds were favourable that he wouldn't end up the same way. At least, not on an assignment, or worse, as in Sarah's case, __**with**__ the assignment._

"_Major Casey, good to see you again," said Roan Montgomery, his gravelly tones sounding out across the apartment that would be serving as the 'classroom' for Chuck and Sarah's seduction lessons. "Ah, Charles. I see the Montgomery worked out well for you," he continued, looking pointedly at Chuck and Sarah's interlocked hands, and the unmistakeable sparkle of a diamond from Sarah's finger._

"_Err," said Chuck uncertainly, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. "Not so much. There was an unforeseen complication to do with certain a former partner."_

_Sarah winced at the memory of that awkward time when she was so, __**so**__ close to giving into Chuck, and to be honest, if Bryce hadn't pulled open the door more fully when he did, she would have been struggling to keep from jumping him there and then. __**Chalk that one down as another 'so near yet so far' moment**__, she thought grimly, thinking also of the other times she had come so close to giving in only for an outside force to break the connection just in time to keep her from losing it totally. _

_The foremost example in her mind was the moment on the Meadow Branch mission. __**If Casey had waited just a couple of seconds longer before bursting in and spouting off that damn one-liner that chair would've taken a lot of cleaning**__, thought Sarah bitterly. What topped it all off was that she was reassigned anyway, despite her efforts to avoid being compromised. Sometimes the forces that kept the world turning had a strange sense of humour, and sometimes they were just downright cruel._

"_Well, it looks like everything worked out alright in the end, Charles. No harm done," said Roan brightly. "Although I have to say I'm surprised it failed in that instance; your darling fiancée looked as if she was struggling to keep her hands off you."_

_**If only you knew**__, thought Sarah grimly once more._

"_Well, I daresay you eventually got it all worked out, if that rock is any indication. You'll have to regale me with that tale some other time, however. We have serious work to do," said Roan, draining the martini that seemed perpetually within his grasp._

"_His liver must look like camouflage," Chuck hissed, feeling a slight sense of déjà-vu even as he uttered the words._

_Roan led them to the counter and indicated the two seats opposite the kitchen of what was now clear was Roan's temporary living arrangement while he worked as an instructor for the British espionage factions. Roan stood on the other side, eyeing both Chuck and Sarah as he mixed another martini. Casey, wanting nothing to do with this; even mentors have some boundaries, after all, stepped outside for some fresh air and a cigar, which Chuck felt rather defeated the purpose of the first reason Casey offered to leave._

"_Now, Charles. Pretend you don't know this wonderful specimen sitting to your left. How would you seduce her?" asked Roan._

"_I don't know," began Chuck, feeling that he probably should have developed some technique from the __**last**__ time they had had this talk. Although...considering how that talk had ended, Chuck wouldn't be complaining if it ended up like last time. "I guess I'd try and make her laugh a little, you know, get her to open up, find a common cultural interest; music, maybe."_

"_So you mean to tell me, that you managed to get a gorgeous, sophisticated woman like that," said Roan, indicating Sarah, "to fall in love with you with __**that**__?"_

"_Well, I think there's something to be said for persistence," said Chuck. "That and I had time to wear her down. Nobody can resist the Bartowski charm if you give me enough time."_

"_Well unfortunately, on a mission there won't be time to 'wear her down'. You need to learn some skills in a __**quick**__ seduction, you need to be able to act interested in the mark without thinking about Miss Walker, and by the same token, you need to be able to act without thinking about it. Kiss her," Roan added, almost as an afterthought._

_Chuck and Sarah both almost choked on the unexpected request. Not that they didn't want to, but it was just that: unexpected._

"_Excuse me?" Chuck asked. "I don't think that's necessary...at this particular juncture."_

"_What's the matter? She is your fiancée, surely you've kissed her before," Roan stated without sympathy._

"_I'm...I'm just not too comfortable with PDA," Chuck answered meekly._

"_Oh Jesus," Roan sighed. "Are you sure you've had intercourse before?"_

"_What?" Chuck almost shouted, incredulous. "Of course I have!"_

_Sarah sighed softly, __**men and their egos.**_

_Meanwhile, Chuck was continuing his defence of his manliness. "I'm solid as a rock in that department, no worries there. Tell him, honey," he finished, looking at Sarah in a silent plea for backup._

"_Hmm?" said Sarah, feigning ignorance. _

"_This isn't working. I'm sorry, Mr. Bartowski, but if you can't kiss your fianceé, of all people, in the relative privacy of a house, what makes you think you can kiss the mark, when the entire mission...is on the line," said Roan._

"_You really want me to kiss her?" Chuck said loudly._

"_Desperately," Roan sighed._

"_Fine," said Chuck, before pulling Sarah up from her seat and grasping her close in an embrace, his face almost welding itself to hers without a moment's hesitation. The momentary tension in Sarah's body, a lasting remnant from her long days as an emotionless husk, dissipated as she felt Chuck's tongue probing her closed mouth. After getting over the surprise of the strength of Chuck's hold and his kiss, she willingly opened her mouth and attacked his tongue just as ferociously as he was hers._

_All rational thought was gone in an instant from both Chuck and Sarah. It was clear that this was no ordinary kiss from the outset, but even so, nothing could prepare either of the two agents in training for the sensations that overwhelmed all else. Normally Sarah managed to retain some awareness of her surroundings, another remnant from her agent days, but now all she could see in front of her was Chuck, all she could feel encompassing her in strong arms was Chuck. His scent filled her sinuses and there was nothing else around her. _

_Roan's shocked face was now just a distant memory, pushed to the back of her mind as she struggled to keep control of her legs. Everything was now fading into the background, from the counter she was being pushed against by Chuck's insistent body to the sun beaming in from the French doors. It was all blurring into one, leaving one clear picture in her mind: Chuck. He was all that mattered now. And from his unfocused expression, Chuck was undergoing much the same sensations._

_Roan looked on in amazement at the events unfolding in front of him. This was not what he had been expecting when he essentially forced the two to kiss, but if nothing else, they were getting into it. Now if only he could get Charles to show this pattern when it wasn't Miss Walker he was kissing..._

"_Charles," said Roan patiently, but when he received no acknowledgement that his pupil had heard him, let alone taken in the word, he spoke louder. "Charles!"_

_Chuck's wandering hands stopped their progression just over halfway up Sarah's top, scant inches from unclasping her bra. Sarah, on the other hand, had somehow managed to find the dexterity to pop open a few of the buttons on Chuck's shirt. Despite the halting of their hands' progress, neither party was willing to break the kiss, which while certainly less fiery in the way of passion, was still one of the best kisses either Chuck or Sarah had had in a long while._

"_Charles!" _

_Roan's voice managed to give Chuck the mental clarity that he sorely needed to break the kiss, although Sarah's eyes staring up at him very nearly made him give in. He eventually pulled his lips from hers, emitting a low growl that was strangely reminiscent of a certain NSA trainer._

"_I have to fix my lipstick, excuse me," Sarah said breathlessly, before almost fleeing upstairs. There were a few items of clothing that needed fixing too, thanks to Chuck's nimble fingers._

"_Sure," Chuck answered to Sarah's back, equally as breathless as the woman he was currently watching sway mesmerizingly up the stairs._

"_I guess you didn't need me to teach you how to get her after all," said Roan, much in the manner of a proud father. "Now how about we get to work..."_

---------

**Present Day**

"Well, that wasn't so bad," said Chuck as he climbed back into the black van that was doubling as a surveillance vehicle for this particular 'mission', relief evident in his voice that he had managed to escape this night of seducing, it seemed, everybody _except_ the person he actually wanted to seduce.

"Chuck, that was torture for me," said Sarah, pulling off the headphones that had enabled her to follow her fiancé's progress through this test seduction missions. She, at least, now understood what Chuck was put through every time she was ordered to seduce a mark for the mission. What she also knew, however, was that it was sometimes necessary for the mission. Not that it made watching the man she loved attempt to seduce another woman any easier; nobody expected it to be easy. She just had to stick it out as Chuck had done all that time ago in L.A.

"Suck it up, Lloyd," said Casey, tactful as ever. "I had to put up with Pugh looking like someone stole his lunch money every time you had to put the moves on a mark, damn sure I'm not going to put up with two whiny _pupils_ all the way back to the base."

"Shut it, Casey, before I shut it for you," snapped Sarah, menace almost tangibly dripping from each word she uttered.

"Calm down, honey," said Chuck, trying to defuse the situation before Casey ended up skewered to his beloved surveillance equipment.

At no point in his life could Chuck have said anything worse than at that point. Sarah slowly turned to face him, and looked at him in a manner that made Chuck visibly pale, and if he didn't realise just how badly timed his comment was, he certainly knew now. There was no scarier sight in Chuck's mind than a pissed off Sarah Walker, and didn't she know it.

"Chuck, don't you ever tell me to calm down. I was damn close to cutting you off tonight anyway for that stunt you pulled at the bar, but-" she was cut off in mid-flow by a Chuck that was desperate to defend his honour.

"Sarah, I was only doing my job at the bar, I promise," he said, and he felt pretty close to falling to his knees and begging for forgiveness. Sarah, it seemed, didn't hear his plea; her hormone-induced craziness that had made his fiancée turn into a woman that had two modes: crying and angry. Angry appeared to have returned.

"You did _not_ just cut me off!" she shouted, and all three of the men in the van visibly cringed, and Chuck endeavoured to burrow deeper into his seat to avoid the barrage that was heading his way. "You know what, just for that, I think I might cut _you_ off. See how you like it," she finished, visibly pleased with the look of horror that crossed Chuck's face.

"Oh no," he almost whispered. It was going to be a long night.

Casey and Roan both had a touch of schadenfreude about their looks. Casey was sitting, chuckling slightly, in the passenger seat of the ten-year-old Ford Transit van that, while looking completely average from the outside, had acquitted itself well in the field. Roan, sitting on the right hand side in the driver's seat, had a wry smile that spoke of years of experience on his face.

"At least one good thing came out of tonight's work, Charles. I think you're probably ready for the seduction element of your test," said Roan encouragingly.

"And your shooting is at least tolerable now. You're probably not going to get much better at the spy craft no matter how much I train you, so I think you're ready for the other sections of the test too."

Chuck sighed. _Oh joy, tests_.

---------

**A/N: SLWF, my beta reader, wasn't sure about the meaning of 'schadenfreude', so I'll put it here.**

**Schadenfreude = Taking pleasure in someone's pain. **

**If you enjoyed it, review. If you hated it, review anyway, I'd like to improve. If you were indifferent to the whole thing, what the hell, review anyway :D**


	12. Chuck Vs The New Intersect

**A/N: It's been a while since this story has found its way into my head, and I'm sorry about that. What better time to update it again than Christmas? Thanks to SLWF for the beta, and I suggest you read the fic she wrote for **_**mxpw**_** for the Holiday Fic Exchange. **

_**Merry Christmas, Fröhliche Weihnachten y Feliz Navidad**_

"I don't know how you did it, but congratulations, Agent Pugh. I'll never get used to calling you that, by the way, Bartowski. Congratulations to you too, Lloyd. I want an invite to the wedding," finished Casey, surprisingly friendly considering his normal gruff disposition.

The three were standing on the runway of Nottingham East Midlands airport, next to the plane that would take Casey to Heathrow. Casey had had enough of the British rail system for a lifetime after a trip to Edinburgh to visit one of his former comrades-in-arms had taken over twelve hours due to various delays. Casey had fulfilled his duty in somehow dragging Chuck's spy skills enough for him to pass the various tests that had to be completed in order to qualify as a field officer of the Security Service.

Sarah, on the other hand, despite passing every test with flying colours, was reduced to a "field support role". The pencil pushers back at Thames House had decided that her pregnancy resulted in too high a risk level for her to be out in the field. Of course, that didn't mean she wouldn't be able to participate in field operations in special circumstances, but more often than not she would be forced to watch from the sidelines as Chuck did the agent work. It was a role reversal Sarah wasn't too happy about, but on reflection it was probably a good thing. She would never forgive herself if she took an unlucky punch to the stomach and it hurt her baby.

"Aww, Casey. I didn't know you cared," said Chuck, never one to miss an opportunity to annoy his one-time handler.

"I don't, but someone has to keep you two out of trouble, might as well be me," said Casey defensively, but neither Chuck nor Sarah were buying that rebuttal for a second.

"Yeah, nice try, Casey. We'll see who gets choked up when we say our vows," said Sarah. She had really gotten into baiting Casey over the time they had spent together during the training, something she put down to Chuck's influence.

"Nice one, honey," said Chuck, choosing to poke the already pissed-off bear once more.

"Don't start doing that creepy couple thing again. It makes me nervous, and my trigger finger gets twitchy when I get nervous."

"Casey, you threaten me so often it's lost all meaning. Haven't you ever thought of branching out?" said Chuck, safe in the knowledge that a threat from Casey was much like two friends engaging in some light-hearted abuse with each other; they didn't mean anything by it, it was just a way to show affection. Not that Casey ever showed affection to anyone or anything other than his various armaments.

"Have fun you two," said Casey, finally giving up. "Pugh, don't get shot. Lloyd, don't shoot Pugh."

That was the last piece of sage advice Casey was willing to give before he hauled his bag onto his shoulder and made his way up the staircase onto the small plane. Chuck and Sarah watched their former partner go, before turning away and heading back to the terminal as the roar of a Ryanair flight, probably heading for somewhere "just outside" Madrid or somewhere similar, filled the air around them.

"You know, for all of the bickering, I'm really going to miss our Sugar Bear," said Chuck sadly.

"Good thing you didn't say that while he was still around to hear it. Not even I would be able to protect you from that," chuckled Sarah.

"Not even _you_?" began Chuck playfully. "Rather high opinion you have of yourself there, Miss Lloyd."

"Ah shush, you know what I meant," said Sarah, smiling. "Now get yourself over to the check-in desk, we have a flight to catch."

--------

Chuck was being sent to JARIC, the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre , historically known as MI4. JARIC, part of the Intelligence Collection Group, was based at RAF Brampton in Cambridgeshire.

Due to the nature of the agency's work, it was deemed as the best location for the British attempt at an Intersect upload centre. The intelligence sharing that went on between both American and British agencies also extended to technology, and therefore the USA had recommended to the British agencies that they not build a computer Intersect, due to the difficulty and expense involved in creating a new cipher without the expertise of Orion.

This had reduced the complexity of the computer needed immensely, as they only needed one with enough processing power to show the images fast enough for an efficient upload into an agent. Both the Security Service and SIS had then begun a method of recruitment similar to the one found in America, in an effort to find someone capable of absorbing, retaining and handling the Intersect images.

Chuck, now he had finished his training, was to be flown by private airline to Cambridge Airport, where he would be transported by RAF chopper to RAF Brampton, just outside Huntingdon. Sarah would be coming along essentially for moral support, although as the team was to meet up for the first time once the upload was complete, she would have needed to come along anyway. Chuck had never flown by helicopter before, and it wasn't something he was particularly looking forward to. Flight never seemed entirely natural to Chuck, considering he was too heavy to fly, was in a metal contraption that should be too heavy to fly, and was with other people that were too heavy to fly. It shouldn't work, yet apparently it did. It was a wonder Chuck hadn't become an aeronautical engineer rather than an electrical engineer.

Once Chuck was at JARIC headquarters he would be uploaded with the combined intelligence of the Security Service, SIS, JARIC and GCHQ. These four agencies composed the majority of the British intelligence system, and would provide a large amount of data for the British Intersect team to work with. The new Intersect team would be comprised similarly to the American team: two field agents with an analyst for technical support and visual aid.

Sarah, naturally, wasn't too happy about being the analyst part of the team, but it was the best way. As the only agencies that employed field agents, the team would be comprised of agents from the Security Service, namely Chuck, with Sarah for field support, and the SIS, who were sending their agent to meet up with Chuck and Sarah at Brampton.

The check-in was simple enough, especially for Sarah, who was somewhat used to how airports worked. There wasn't ever much variation on the theme when it came to the metal boxes that served as a transport hub for most of the world. The two newly appointed agents made their way across the runway once more, this time towards their plane, as the watery May sun made its way through the perennial cloud cover that signified they were still in the UK and this hadn't been a strange dream.

---------

They were welcomed on board the small private plane that would whisk them down to Cambridgeshire by one of the flight attendants, and they settled in for the short flight. Sarah's head was settled on Chuck's shoulder, as she usually did while they travelled. She ran her hand instinctively across her slight 3-month pregnancy bump. She had had the shock of her life when she first felt the small rise in her belly, considering all of her efforts to stay in shape, but when she realised what that bump signified, she actually cried a little. That hadn't happened for a while over something happy.

The plane began to roll towards its take-off position, and Sarah settled herself even more comfortably next to Chuck. He pressed a soft kiss to her head and took her left hand in his right, lightly running his fingers over the diamond that represented everything that mattered in both of their lives. He then intertwined his fingers with hers, although Sarah was all-to-aware that romance wasn't his immediate intention with that move. She knew Chuck was terrified of take-offs and landings, so she braced herself for the inevitable death grip that came with the sudden burst of acceleration from the plane. She grimaced slightly but managed to bear it, thinking over and over about the sweet revenge she would have on Chuck's hands in roughly six months' time.

After the take-off, Chuck relaxed somewhat. He still didn't look entirely comfortable, but his grip on Sarah's hand was now comforting rather than painful. The flight wasn't even an hour long, so Sarah wasn't even going to attempt to get some sleep. The fields of Herefordshire were left behind as they flew over the picturesque city of Worcester, the River Severn cutting a path through the middle of it, and due to some heavy rainfall, had ended up flooding the cricket ground, _again_.

They passed over Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare, in the blink of an eye, and Sarah made a mental note to return there at some point. She had loved Shakespeare since her high school Honours English class, her only refuge from the "highest" rung of the school's social ladder, namely Dick Duffy and Heather Chandler. She had found refuge from her troubled home life in the flowing script of Shakespeare's works, and she had always wanted to make the pilgrimage to the Tudor house in which the playwright was born.

Northampton was next on this flying tour across England, and the city again passed them by quickly and unspectacularly, as they headed into Cambridgeshire, and towards Cambridge airport, their next stop on the way to essentially reforming "Team Intersect". A quick turnaround at Cambridge airport and they were standing by an RAF Merlin helicopter, refuelled and ready to return to Brampton. The rotors began their lazy revolution as Chuck and Sarah approached and were helped into the aircraft by a Junior Technician. The pilot, Flight Sergeant Bramwell, completed the pre-flight checks and the rotors began spinning again in earnest.

Sarah once again braced herself for the bone-crushing grip on her hand, but Chuck seemed rather calm when there wasn't the type of acceleration seen in an aeroplane take-off. He didn't look too at ease with the way the helicopter suddenly banked to the north-west, but all it took was a soothing stroke of the back of his hand from Sarah and he visibly relaxed once more. He tilted her chin up from its position, nestled on his shoulder, to deliver a soft kiss to her lips. An embarrassed cough from in front of them made them break apart, and they saw a very uncomfortable looking Junior Technician desperately trying to look _anywhere_ but directly in front of him. Sarah took pity on him and contented herself with playing with her fiancé's hand as it rested underneath hers for the rest of the trip.

-------

The Intersect facility at JARIC was similar in design to the one housed at Ft. Meade until that fateful day when Bryce Larkin stole the data and sent it to an unsuspecting retail worker. It was a large white room, featureless save for the computer terminal placed in the centre.

The main difference was that this computer wasn't a supercomputer capable of processing millions of images in seconds, it was a standard computer that you could buy in most retail outlets, used only to trigger the flood of images that would result in an agent with Intersect knowledge. Attempts had been made to insert skills into the data, but as far as all of the scientists involved were concerned, it should be impossible to create, let alone implement reliably.

There was also a viewing section on one of the walls, fitted with a type of glass that blocked the human mind's ability to recognise the subliminal images encoded within the mundane images that made up the visual output of the Intersect. In theory, at least, this should keep any observers safe without the need for sunglasses.

Sarah had reluctantly been dragged away from her soon-to-be husband and left in the observation room while technicians bustled around the plan white room, preparing for what was essentially the culmination of their career's work: a human download of the Intersect. Chuck stood in the corner, calmly waiting. He was fairly sure this should go without a hitch; after all, he had survived two different uploads and an update of the first upload. This shouldn't be too difficult.

On the other hand, Sarah was starting to freak out. She hadn't ever seen a "live" Intersect upload or update except for the Fulcrum one, and she was sure her heart had stopped for a short time while Chuck was unconscious after that upload. She wondered if it hurt him at all, or if he just made his "flash face" for a few minutes. There were so many uncertainties in her mind about what was about to happen that she failed to notice the entry of another person into the room.

"Ah, Agent Walker. I wasn't expecting to see you again," said Agent Cole Barker, SIS. At the sound of his voice, Sarah whipped around so fast she almost created a cyclone.

"Of all the agents in that entire agency..." she muttered under her breath, before forcing a smile and greeting her visitor. "Agent Barker."

"Please, it's Cole," said the British agent charmingly. "May I ask why you're here? I was told that I was to meet with my new te...ohhh," he trailed off as he put the pieces together.

He rallied magnificently nevertheless, and he pressed on, "So, what brings you to this dear old island, Agent Walker?"

"It's Agent Lloyd now, and I think you might be able to guess why I'm here."

"No, I'm still not sure. Perhaps you could explain it to me...over dinner?"

"Nice try, but things have changed since we last met," said Sarah, holding up her left hand and letting the sparkle from her fourth finger do the talking.

"I suppose I wasn't wrong when I said I'd lost the girl to Chuck Bartowski then. Unless some other lucky bastard's managed to get there before me."

"Don't flatter yourself, you never had 'the girl'. Chuck's the one in there now getting the upload," she continued, face full of worry as she indicated to the white room behind her.

"Hey, Walk...Lloyd, why are you so worried? It's nothing he hasn't dealt with before."

"I know, it's just...everything seems to affect me more these days when it comes to emotions, more specifically, when it comes to Chuck. I don't know what I'd do if I lost him; I gave up everything for him."

"Wait," said Cole, the jigsaw in his mind falling into place, "this little trip across the Atlantic isn't exactly US-approved, is it?"

"Well, not entirely," answered Sarah.

"What did Chuck do?" asked Cole.

"Why do you assume it was Chuck?" responded Sarah aggressively , her protective side coming out.

"Whoa, Lloyd. Is there any need for that type of attitude?" said Cole, before moving to sit at the table provided in the observation room, muttering the age-old adage of "Women, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em."

Sarah was preparing another verbal assault on Cole, when she saw Chuck begin to walk towards the command terminal. Her heart leapt into her mouth, and she couldn't draw her eyes away from him. Her hands drifted protectively and instinctively to where the little being inside her was growing, something Cole noticed with great intrigue. Sarah was terrified of what might happen, yet a part of her was curious to see exactly what happened when Chuck was absorbing the Intersect. Chuck was now taking some last minute instructions from the head technician, before every man in a white coat scurried from the room, leaving Chuck alone.

"Alright, here we go, please don't hurt too much," Chuck muttered to no one in particular, before he placed his palm on the pad to activate the Intersect. Images began rapidly flashing all around him, and his pupils seemed to move by some higher control as they took in every image and noted the secrets held within them. Chuck felt the familiar tingling at the base of his skull as information flooded in, and he also once again felt the pressure against the inside of his head as blood surged to his brain in order to supply his synapses with enough Acetylcholine to transmit the information from the visual cortex to the "memory bank" of his brain fast enough to avoid shut down.

Sarah saw and felt none of this, of course. All she saw were Chuck's eyelids fluttering rapidly as he took in all of the information. Cole also watched with interest as Chuck absorbed the vast majority of his homeland's secrets. Suddenly the rapid torrent of images ceased, and Chuck collapsed forwards onto the terminal. Sarah immediately felt a jolt of terror as she watched the man she loved struggle to get back to his feet. He managed to get upright, but only for a second as he fell again to his knees.

"I'm going in there," Sarah said forcefully, turning to leave but only finding the exit blocked by two nameless SIS agents.

"I need to get in there!" she shouted. When the guards remained as stoic as ever, she continued to rage. "Chuck's in pain in there, and all you can do is stand there and do nothing! Let me go to Chuck before I kill both of you!"

Cole stepped between the two suddenly nervous guards and a raging Sarah, which was usually not a wise policy, but he pressed on, gently holding both of her arms and attempting to reason with her.

"Sarah, please, think of your child. All of this is not going to be helping it."

At the mention of her baby's safety Sarah calmed almost immediately, and she turned to watch Chuck attempt to struggle again to his feet. He had never had to fight this hard to overcome the effects of an Intersect download before, and he never made it past all-fours before he again collapsed to the ground. This time however, he made no attempt to get up and was still. Sarah's world stopped spinning at the same moment Chuck stopped moving, and she barely made it to the table before she collapsed in shock into a chair. Cole whirled into action as soon as he had seen Chuck's final attempt to stand and Sarah's subsequent reaction. He may have failed in his ultimate goal to get into her pants, but he still viewed her as at the very least a comrade-in-arms, and he wouldn't fail her, or the other member of his new team. He grabbed the radio from the stunned agent guarding the door and barked into it.

"Somebody get a paramedic in there, now! Agent Pugh is down! I repeat, Agent Pugh is down!"

**A/N: Hopefully, for your sakes, I can get the next chapter done quicker; bit of a mean ending otherwise lol.**


	13. Chuck Vs The Hospital

**A/N: I'm pretty surprised I managed to get this written so quickly, but at least it means I don't get a mob after me for that cliff-hanger ending. I go back to university at the weekend, and I have no idea whether I'll be able to write much there, so this may be the last chapter for a month or so, unless I can get another one written quickly. Thanks to Sarah-fan at for doing the beta and stopping me from writing something stupid (it happens more often than you might think), and thanks to everyone that's reviewed this story up till now.**

Sarah's world stopped spinning at the same moment Chuck stopped moving, and she barely made it to the table before she collapsed in shock into a chair. Cole whirled into action as soon as he had seen Chuck's final attempt to stand and Sarah's subsequent reaction. He may have failed in his ultimate goal to get into her pants, but he still viewed her as at the very least a comrade-in-arms, and he wouldn't fail her, or the other member of his new team. He grabbed the radio from the stunned agent guarding the door and barked into it.

"Somebody get a paramedic in there, now! Agent Pugh is down! I repeat, Agent Pugh is down!"

The next few seconds passed in a flurry of movement. Cole burst past the two agents guarding the door to the observation room and forced his way into the room, two paramedics hot on his heels, one carrying a stretcher, the other holding a bag full of medical supplies. Sarah, on the other hand, was still sitting at the table in shock. She hadn't moved since Chuck had himself stopped moving, and she stared at the wall, as if it would give her the answer to how she would go on without Chuck.

Just then, Cole returned to the observation deck, red faced and breathing heavily from his dash to Chuck's side and then his efforts in assisting the paramedics with the emergency first-aid. Sarah still hadn't moved, and she looked as if she was barely managing to hold herself together. Her lower lip was quivering as she kept her hands protectively around her abdomen, as if she needed to remind herself that she had something to make her happy.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," Cole muttered under his breath, before he continued in an effort to comfort the blonde woman in front of him. "Sarah, they've taken Chuck to the base hospital, we should leave as soon as possible to go see him."

"No! I don't want to have to identify his body!" shouted Sarah, before the fragile dam of her emotions broke in a torrent that obliterated every defence she had, and she collapsed in tears in the chair. Cole wasn't exactly experienced in comforting crying women, let alone hormonally-imbalanced crying women who could very easily impale him with a knife in less than a second, so he ended up putting his arms around Sarah in an awkward half-hug. Sarah then clung to him for dear life, nearly crushing the air from his lungs. He could feel his shirt beginning to get damp as Sarah mourned for her lost fiancé, which was when he finally listened properly to what Sarah had said.

"There isn't any body _to_ identify, Sarah. He needs you," finished Cole, almost pleading. Sarah stopped wailing into his shirt long enough to look up at Cole's face, looking for any sign that he wasn't telling the truth before she would allow herself to believe that Chuck wasn't actually gone and this was all a cruel trick.

"But...I saw...he stopped moving," said Sarah uncertainly.

"He's conscious, but he can't move," began Cole, before launching into an explanation. "They think there was a bug in the Intersect programming. It was a piece of code left in from another experiment where they attempted to place skills into the Intersect."

"A bug? So one of the developers hurt Chuck?" asked Sarah, her anger already growing that someone had dared harm Chuck, even accidentally.

" Chuck must have flashed on something in the room that triggered a skill flash, but they don't know what yet. When he flashed, the Intersect took control of his motor functions, which was what the code left in was designed to do. Of course, there wasn't any more code to actually deliver the skill, so it left Chuck in limbo. The Intersect had control but it couldn't do anything with him, which is the state he's still stuck in until they can remove the faulty Intersect programming."

Sarah looked at Cole in wonder as he explained the science behind what had happened to Chuck. She didn't know how he knew that, and frankly, she didn't care. All that mattered was Chuck was still with her, and she had to go and see him as soon as she could. Her baby still had its dad, and Sarah would do anything in her power to keep it that way.

Cole, on the other hand, was glad that he had actually listened to the head scientist behind the British Intersect team, codenamed Aries. Sarah probably wouldn't have believed him if he had just burst in and told her Chuck was still alive, but the long-winded explanation that sounded like it could make sense had given her time to process the information without any pressure. Now she knew, and he could see the smile spread across her face, a mixture of happiness and relief as she looked down at the small bump in her stomach.

"Let's go see Chuck," Sarah said with a strength she wasn't sure she'd ever possess again after seeing Chuck fall and not get back up. Cole followed her out of the room, stopping only to grab the keys for the van he had seen parked just outside the door to the complex.

-------

The military hospital at the RAF base was nothing particularly special, but Sarah felt as though it was the best hospital on the planet at this point. Despite the fact they hadn't actually done a lot to aid Chuck's health save for monitoring his vitals and putting him in a bed, she was feeling incredibly grateful to everyone she saw that had played a part in his treatment.

The idiots that had forgotten to take out the skill trigger on the other hand, well they probably wouldn't leave the room in one piece if Sarah got a hold of them. Nobody dared to hurt _her_ Chuck, and if they did, they had to answer to the fury of Sarah Walker. She turned into somewhat of a psycho where damage to Chuck was involved, although as Chuck had once said, she was his adorable psycho.

Right now, there was a team of scientists working to reprogram the Intersect to remove it from Chuck's head so they could try again, this time with the offending line of code being removed. A previous test had shown that the human brain could still retain subliminal images even while the body was unable to respond, so the scientists were in the midst of hooking Chuck up to the device that would remove the "test" Intersect from Chuck's brain when Sarah walked in.

"Get your hands off my fiancé," she said, her voice cold and dripping with menace as she stood in the doorway to Chuck's room. The technicians looked round, and after seeing the look on Sarah's face, decided that the best thing to do would be to bravely, as the locals put it, "leg it". Sarah stepped to the side as they moved past her, rage still etched on her face that they dared to touch Chuck again. She looked at the object of everything that mattered in her life and calmed almost immediately.

He looked so peaceful in that hospital bed, which was certainly better than the cries of pain that she knew would haunt her dreams for a long time to come. Of course, this peacefulness came at a cost. He was still barely conscious in that bed, and even her presence wasn't going to fix that. She still went and sat next to him, taking his hand tenderly as she laid a soft kiss to his unresponding lips. Sarah was content to sit there, watching the slight rise and fall of her man's chest as he breathed, and just holding his hand, but she was interrupted by Cole clearing his throat at the entrance to Chuck's room.

"They can help him, you know," he reassured her.

"But what if they just make him worse?" Sarah asked fearfully. "I can't do it without him."

"They know what they're doing, Sarah. He'll be fine, I promise," said Cole, again trying to comfort his new partner. "Now let them do their jobs so we can have Chuck back to his normal inelegant self."

"I'll have you know he's got a lot more graceful recently," said Sarah with mock anger.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with the repeated nightly workouts, would it?" responded Cole jokingly, to which Sarah just blushed madly. This certainly threw Cole, the Sarah Walker he had, admittedly briefly, known wouldn't have reacted like that, and of that he was fairly sure. _Must be another one of the effects Chuck has had on her. How did you pull that one off, you lucky devil?_ Cole asked himself, for what seemed to be the millionth time since that mission in L.A. all those months ago.

The scientists returned to the hospital room and began their work once more, most of them eyeing Sarah nervously, as though she were about to sprout knives and attack all of them. To be fair to them, it wasn't something that was beyond the realms of possibility if one of them so much as knocked a hair out of place on Chuck's head. Cole lead Sarah away, albeit with some reluctance on her part, as they left the scientists to commence removing the Intersect, complete with the offending line of code, from Chuck's head.

-----

To remove the Intersect, Aries had come up with a simple plan. They would prop Chuck up in his hospital bed while his eyes were held open in much the same manner as they had been in the Fulcrum facility under Meadow Branch. Then the reconfigured Intersect images would be projected onto the wall opposite Chuck, and in theory he should then be able to move again once the Intersect had been removed.

They were just about done with setting up the hospital room to remove the Intersect within a few minutes, and Sarah was beginning to panic again. She couldn't sit still in the hospital waiting room that Cole had taken her too, and repeatedly started to move back towards Chuck's room before Cole intercepted her, telling her that the Intersect technicians needed space to work. What he didn't add, for fear of his own safety, was that it would probably be a good idea to keep someone who didn't tend to take Chuck looking like he was in pain very well away from a room where scientists would be essentially messing around with Chuck's brain.

Sarah was pacing madly until she saw a series of flashing lights coming from Chuck's room. She knew this meant that the Intersect "slideshow" had begun, and she immediately became worried for Chuck again. Cole looked on from his seated position at her frantic pacing, as she occasionally ran her hand over her stomach and looked anxiously over towards Chuck's room.

Within a few minutes the flashing lights had stopped, signifying the end of what Sarah hoped was the Intersect removal and Chuck's forced paralysis. When the first technician left the room, still wearing his shades, she walked quickly to the door to Chuck's room, barely controlling the impulse to run to Chuck's side.

She pushed past the remaining scientists that were trying to leave Chuck's room after packing up the Intersect display and moved quickly to Chuck's side, grabbing hold of his hand once more. As one of the scientists left, he turned to her and opened his mouth to speak.

"He should be awake in about a minute. Just press that button next to his bed if there are still issues with his movement," he said, pointing to the small button that lay near Sarah's chair. Sarah didn't look to have paid any attention to him, however, as she kept holding Chuck's hand and stroking his hair back, letting her hand linger on his cheek.

It was as she was about to withdraw her hand she saw Chuck's eyelids begin to slit, although they immediately closed as he tried to adjust to the unfamiliar light. Sarah's smile that was reserved only for Chuck bloomed in full force once she was finally able to gaze into his eyes again, something she had thought she would never do again less than an hour ago.

"Hey," she said softly, her hand still cradling his cheek as he turned towards her. He kissed the palm of her hand before lifting his hand to cradle Sarah's cheek.

"Hey yourself," he answered croakily. "You have no idea how bored I was, waiting for them to take the faulty Intersect out. The wait was worth it though," he finished, smiling up at her.

Sarah withdrew her hand from his cheek, and did something Chuck was never expecting. Just as Chuck craned his head upwards to get a proper "welcome back" kiss Sarah drew her fist back and punched him square on the shoulder. Chuck yelped in pain and looked at Sarah in shock.

"What the hell was that for?" he asked in surprise, nursing his surprisingly painful shoulder. Sarah really had put a _lot_ into that punch.

"Never, _never_, do that to me again. Don't you dare try to die on me again," she said in a voice full of menace, yet Chuck could still detect the very real fear she had of losing him.

"Don't worry, I'll double my efforts to not die," said Chuck, the sarcasm dripping from every word, but he realised he had said the wrong thing when he could see the tears threatening to spill from Sarah's eyes.

"Hey, hey, hey," he continued, his voice much softer than before. "I'm not going anywhere. It'll take more than some lousy piece of code for you to get rid of me. Remember, I happen to be very much in love with you; I have something to fight for. Now can I get my kiss to remind me what I have to live for?" finished Chuck, smiling broadly with the last sentence.

"Well..." began Sarah, feigning uncertainty, "I suppose you have had a tough day."

"Tough's probably an understa-," answered Chuck, before Sarah cut him off by kissing him fiercely. Chuck's momentary surprise at her kiss gave way to a passionate response. Due to the fact Chuck was still too weak from his quite literal battle with the Intersect, Sarah was forced to climb onto the bed in order to get close enough to satisfy her need for Chuck.

Naturally, even being on the bed and pressed up against Chuck wasn't enough for her, and Chuck appeared to be thinking the same, if the way he was feverishly working the buttons of her blouse open was any indication. There wasn't much that could make them break this particular kiss save for the basic need for oxygen, and Sarah was seeing the benefits of the regular cardio training Chuck had undergone which had increased his lung volume, meaning he could hold his breath for longer and therefore Sarah could lose herself in him for longer.

However, all too soon her lips began to burn not from passion but through lack of air, and she reluctantly forced herself away from Chuck. Sarah took the time to look at the slightly dazed look on Chuck's face, and noted with a small amount of pride the difficulty he was still having in getting himself back under control. The fact she had thought not long ago that she wouldn't have been able to do that with him again, yet here he was struggling to catch his breath after a make-out session made her smile grow even bigger.

"Excuse me, I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" came Cole's voice in his gravelly tone from the entrance to Chuck's room. It was perfectly obvious that he was, in fact, interrupting something, considering Sarah's blouse was hanging loosely off her shoulders and both of the two other occupants were breathing rather heavily.

"Cole?" Chuck asked in shock. "What are you doing here?"

"Sarah hasn't gotten round to telling you yet?" he responded, before continuing, "Although I suppose you two _were_ a little busy."

Sarah's eyes narrowed in irritation, something Cole took as a sign to get to the point quickly, before he lost important parts of his anatomy.

"I'm the SIS part of the new Intersect team. I'd done some research on the Intersect when they sent me to get close to Perseus," Cole began, referring back to the mission that had brought him into contact with Team Bartowski. "I suppose that experience with how the Intersect works counted for something upstairs, and they wanted me on the new team. I wasn't expecting my team mates to be _quite_ so experienced with the Intersect though. How did that happen anyway?"

"It's a long story," said Sarah evasively.

"I'm sure there'll be a boring mission at some point, you can explain it then. Oh, by the way, they should have the Intersect fixed and ready for upload within a couple of hours, and they want to keep Chuck in here to monitor him right up until he receives the upload, so find a way to occupy yourselves until then. And for Christ's sake, lock the door," finished Cole as he let himself out of the room, shutting the door behind him. This was going to be an..._interesting_ assignment.

"Do you have any idea what we could do for these next few hours, Chuck?" asked Sarah playfully, settling next to Chuck on the hospital bed, not bothering to rebutton her blouse.

"I have a few," said Chuck as he resumed kissing her, the lack of buttons on Sarah's blouse certainly providing easier access for his wandering hands.

Suddenly they were both wearing way too many clothes.


End file.
